What happened in Boston?
On the surface, Victor Navansky, writing for the April 16th issue of The Nation, said it best: “Everyone agrees that the story is that there is no story. The candidates have already been chosen. The platform has been written so as to avoid controversy.” In other words, the result of the primary process, as conceived and executed by the unholy alliance of the Democratic leadership and the corporate press, has become so front-loaded and truncated as to render a national convention a superfluous political side-show. It’s not hyperbolic to suggest that, given the rush to judgment that was this last primary election cycle, whoever won in Iowa was the de-facto candidate. The appropriate answer to the above is that nothing happened in Boston – nothing at all.
Because no intra-party dissenting voice was allowed to be heard after the media dubbed Kerry the “frontrunner,” at least not in Texas. Those of us delegates who were not originally Kerry supporters were told by party insiders that we “had to sign in for Kerry” at State and even at County for our votes to count. When the time came at State to elect national delegates, only those who had filled out the proper paperwork pledging themselves to Kerry were allowed to be nominated, and only those delegates who had signed in for Kerry were allowed to vote.
No one within the party has offered a tenable explanation as to why this was so, but my understanding is that this is all right and true according to the party rules. (The rules are the rules!) But I say that the process itself is broken, that it no longer reflects the will of the party constituents, and that the rules need to be changed in order to preserve any semblance of political integrity.
Once upon a time (Do any of you remember?), the presidential and vice presidential nominees were chosen by delegate vote live at the convention. The process then allowed for real debate, and the delegates, who, if they were not exactly “grassroots,” were a great deal closer to it than the DNC leadership, had an active role to play. Unfortunately, nothing even remotely like that is allowed to take place anymore. The state by state delegate count held late Wednesday night for the benefit of the cameras was a complete sham as there was no possibility of the nomination going to anyone but Kerry. It was a humiliating exercise for the delegates and an insult to the intelligence of the public.
Actually, the delegates were expected to have little or no say about anything at the convention. We voted on committee resolutions, but no discussion (and, hence, no revision) was allowed before the vote. The way in which the platform vote took place was suggestive. All Tuesday afternoon, we listened to speaker after speaker expound the (what they call in Speech class) “glittering generalities” of the platform, and I assumed (wrongly, as it turned out) that once the 7:00 p.m. witching hour arrived (when the press “went national”) that we would vote on the platform.
But no vote came on Tuesday. Not until Wednesday, at nine minutes after 4:00 p.m, according to the clock in the hall, was the platform brought to a vote. My best estimate would be that maybe a tenth of the delegates were on the floor at the time – hardly a quorum.
To summarize the importance of this grand non-event, if the Democrats in general, and the Kerry-Edwards campaign in particular, are going to claim “grassroots” support, they’re going to have to start listening to the grassroots. Nearly 80% of the Houston delegation at State were first-timers (like me). These are people who have chosen to enter into the process because they want, and demand, to be heard. If the structure of the primary and the organization of the conventions continue to stifle, rather than encourage, public debate, the Democrats are in trouble.
But wait! Was there another convention in Boston? As a matter of fact, yes; there was a defining undercurrent apparent from day one, and it burst onto the media stage when Howard Dean addressed the convention on Tuesday. The response from the delegation when something like “We would now like to introduce the man who energized the Democratic party…” was announced was a spontaneous standing ovation that lasted several minutes and caused the governor to make a few false starts by refusing to subside. A similar reaction occurred when Dean mentioned his supporters in Texas. (According to Glen Maxey, Democracy for Texas political coordinator, one third of the Texas delegates were Dean supporters – properly signed in for Kerry, of course.) Think Texas is a done deal? Not according to David Van Os who is currently running for the Texas Supreme Court. He wrote in a recent e-mail: “I know from unmistakable evidence of my own eyes and ears that Texas is definitely winnable.” This sentiment is echoed by activists across the state.
Political pundit Mark Shields remarked on the PBS New Hour Wednesday, “You could say it’s Howard Dean’s convention and John Kerry’s candidacy.” These sentiments were tacitly admitted to by David Brooks and Jim Lehrer, although underplayed by Dean himself.
I attended a “Delegates for Dean” caucus on Monday. I would guesstimate the crowd at about 300. Dean addressed the group without the presence of the press because he wanted us to be able to speak our minds (a stark contrast to the convention proper). He explained that he had decided to drop out of the race because it had become apparent to him that “one of two men was going to be elected in November, either George Bush of John Kerry.” (He didn’t directly address the inequity of the process, but most of the people there, many of whom had been actively involved in his campaign for over a year, understood the implication.)
Dean told his supporters that he hoped they would support the Democratic Party and the Kerry-Edwards ticket, adding that “following November third, you all get a month off. Then it’s back to work.” And he repeated at the convention:
“I may not be the nominee, but I can tell you this: For the next hundred days, I’ll be doing everything I can to make sure that John Kerry and John Edwards take back our country for the people who built it. Because tonight, we’re all here to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.”
And the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party needs to make a stand in Texas. At a recent meeting of Democracy for Texas/El Paso, I was asked by several new faces why Dean’s name was still coming up, the implication being that Kerry was the nominee, and that we should put all our support behind him. Agreed. Kerry-Edwards is the only viable option against Bush-Cheney in November, but the process doesn’t end in November.
At one of the Democratic GAIN caucuses, Joe Trippi, the Internet guru who set the stage for the Democratic grassroots insurgency, emphasized the undeniable similarity between the two major parties, in that their leaderships are attuned to corporate elitism and big money and are separated by a gulf of privilege and complacency from the concerns of the average citizen, that both parties have decided that it’s easier to scare and/or patronize the American people into compliance than it is to listen to them. Trippi’s point (one that I’ve been making for years) is that if neither of the parties wakes up to the current political reality and makes a stand on behalf of the grassroots, one of them is going down in favor of some Populist resurgence (and it ain’t likely to be the Republicans).
In short, the Democratic grassroots resurgence is real. The support for John Kerry as the best hope to defeat George W. Bush is real. The schism comes in when Kerry tries to portray himself as the leader of the grassroots (because he isn’t). It’s no accident that Edwards is the VP nominee. Imagine the response from the party’s new progressive wing if Kerry had chosen an old guard, establishment running mate, like Gephardt. The old guard (Graham, Lieberman, McAuliffe) was very much in evidence, but so was the new (Gore, Mosely-Braun, Obama). The party of Jefferson needs to leave off being “Bush-light.” The Democratic leadership (and this means you, Kerry) needs to demonstrate some genuine, old-fashioned faith in its constituents. The DNC needs to pay attention to Texas, and we committed activists on the ground need to get out the vote.
The convention, for me, was a microcosm of what has gone wrong (and right) with the Democratic Party: all show and no substance, blatant media-fawning (Wouldn’t it have been funny if Kerry had decided to keep out the press? What a story!), and an almost complete disregard for constituent feedback; juxtaposed with a populist undercurrent, tacit empowerment of the electorate, and a demand for change. The contrast couldn’t have been more obvious.
What happened in Boston? EVERYTHING happened in Boston!
Amy Dalzell went to the 2004 Democratic National Convention as a delegate for Texas.