Conventions Have Lost Sight Of Purpose Against The Hype How Does All This Packaging Serve Democracy?

One big, fat infomercial.

Tune in to the Republican National Convention and that’s what you’ll see - packaged speeches, packaged applause, packaged cue lines. Even Bob Dole’s daughter was instructed to smile after she said a gushing thing about her father.

Paul Manafort, Bob Dole’s convention manager, admitted to New Yorker magazine that he watched hundreds of infomercials to prepare for the convention. He planned all the boring stuff to happen when the television cameras were off.

This is useful? This helps democracy? This is worth the attention of 16,000 media people? No way.

Let’s dump the conventions. Once upon a time, they served a true purpose. Once upon a time, real events took place during them. At the Democratic National Convention in 1956, for instance, candidate Adlai Stevenson announced that the delegates would choose his running mate. Those who battled it out, in front of convention-goers and the media gathered in Chicago, included Estes Kefauver (who won), Albert Gore (father of the current vice president), Hubert Humphrey and John F. Kennedy.

Imagine seeing all that - unrehearsed, unprogrammed, spontaneous!

One “Far Side” cartoon depicts a dog listening to his master. What the dog hears is “blah, blah, blah.” That’s what the public is hearing night after night. Programmed blah. And the Democrats won’t do much better when their turn comes the last week of August.

So how about scrapping the conventions entirely and using the money instead on town hall meetings with real people? Plan dozens of these meetings, staged live, with no opportunity for applause signs or cues to smile on demand. Or spend some of the money to invite journalists working for small-town newspapers and small-market television stations to talk with the candidates. Or give the candidates increased air time to bring their message directly to people.

Some infomercials are well-done. Audience members sometimes even cry over abdominal-strengthening machines and products that make your skin smooth. Watch the conventions now and they look real. But they are as fake as any paid programming you’ll see on television in the middle of the night. We all deserve better.

, DataTimes MEMO: See opposing view under the headline: More to convention than meets the eye

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