Nows and Forevers

Chicago was announced Tuesday as the site of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, beating out New York and Atlanta. The Republican National Convention will be held next year in Milwaukee.

The last round of conventions, held in the pandemic year of 2020, looked nothing like the conventions of the past. Both were scaled back. It remains to be seen what will happen in 2024, but with the pandemic receding from view, it’s safe to say the political conventions will party more like it’s 2016.

I don’t have a dog in the fight, but until the last few election cycles, I had paid a lot of attention to both conventions. Fair to say I was fascinated by them, both as a viewer and later as a journalist who covered on the ground the Republican National Convention in 2004 in New York and 2008 in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.

The first convention I remember, on TV, was in 1980. I vividly remember, as a 13-year-old, being fascinated by the presidential campaign between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan (and John Anderson). I couldn’t get enough of it, either reading about it in the newspaper, listening on the radio (mostly on WCBS-AM in New York, my station of choice), or on TV. It was heavily on the broadcast networks as well as an upstart cable network, CNN.

Back in those days, there was gavel-to-gavel coverage on the broadcast networks. It started in the morning and ended late at night, just like being there. I remember my grandmother being picqued by the fact that her “stories,” the soap operas that were all over TV then, were being pre-empted by Walter Cronkite, Edwin Newman and Frank Reynolds. It was fine by me. The only things I cared about in 1980 were the Boston Red Sox and baseball in general, shortwave/amateur radio and politics.
And not always in that order.

There was a little drama in the 1980 RNC, with the possibility that nominee Ronald Reagan would choose former President Gerald Ford as his running mate and then the emergence of George H.W. Bush.
But looking back over the next 42 years, there’s been little drama, either on or off the screens. The candidates are selected before the convention and the state voting and other procedures are pretty much just rubber stamps. More than one observer has called the political conventions nothing more than a four-day infomercial, and I tend to agree.

The major networks — ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox — long ago decided to cut back on their coverage of the political conventions. That has seemed wiser in recent years, as the rise of cable news (which has more airtime to fill and less to do it with) and then social media, has made the conventions even less relevant to the average viewer.

Even the speeches, which I thought were somewhat interesting, I don’t pay much attention to anymore. The last ones I followed closely — like being in the room with the candidates — were in 2008.

True confession: I didn’t watch in 2020, nor in 2016 nor 2012. And that’s as someone who has always been more interested in following politics, at every level, than any sport, and who covered politics on and off for the past 30+ years. On the other hand, being in person and covering the political conventions in 2004 and 2008 — and both presidential campaigns from all over the country all the way to Election Day — were among the biggest highlights of my career.

The conventions themselves probably have a lot of meaning to the delegates, as well as the host cities. There’s nothing wrong with that. But as a televised spectacle, it seems conventions’ best days have passed.

And that’s not likely to change in 2024, no matter where they are.