Conventional Wisdom

     By now, everyone who knows me, and even the few bored souls who've read this blog, should know that presidential politics is my sport.   Others follow football or basketball or hockey, root for their favorite teams, look forward all year to the Super Bowl or March Madness or the Gray Cup or the Stanley Cup.   I follow baseball, but just barely.  I love the punching and jabbing of presidential politics and have since I was a little kid.  I follow all politics and current events, and generally like to stay somewhat informed on many subjects, because I'm generally curious and because I believe in the Dormouse's advice to feed my head.
     I started following politics as a child, believe it or not.   Harry Truman was president when I was born, and I have a faint memory of him in office.  I understand my parents took me to see him when he visited Hungry Horse Dam near our  home in Kalispell, Montana in October, 1952 when I was about six years old.  I don't remember it, although I do remember visiting the dam back then, and the observation stations they had set up, and watching the huge machinery working on the project.   I was aware of "Ike and Dick" being elected and have a memory of a huge banner hung on the building at the corner of Second Street and Main Street in Kalispell with pictures of the two emblazoned with their nicknames.
     My first real experience with following the election was in 1956.  I turned ten years old two days after the election.   Despite my young age, I was fascinated not only by the "horserace" but by the process.  The nominating conventions were my first exposure.
     The purpose of each party's convention, held every four years, is to select the party's candidate for president and vice-president, and to decide on a list of positions on various issues, called a "platform."  Both the Democrats and the Republicans hold conventions, as well as the minor parties.   There is no mention of these conventions in the Constitution, nor is there mention of parties, however in the earliest days of the republic, politicians divided in to two main camps, with others coming and going over the years.
     The first parties were the Federalists (led generally by Alexander Hamilton) and the Democratic-Republican Party (led by Thomas Jefferson.)  Put simply, the Federalists favored a strong central government   and a more active government role, while the Democratic-Republicans vigorously opposed them, wanting instead a minimal role for government.   This division lasted until the Monroe administration, when partisan politics pretty much fell by the wayside for a brief time, although the parties remained intact.
     In 1828, the Democratic-Republicans split into the Democrats (led by Andrew Jackson) and the Whigs.  The Democrats favored a strong presidency and opposed a central bank and government investment in much of anything, particularly infrastructure.  The Whigs favored a stronger Congress and advocated government investment in such things as railroads and other modernizing development.  By the 1850s, the Whigs started to fade away, largely because of deaths of former leaders, but most significantly, over the issue of slavery.
     The 1850s saw the emergence of the Republican Party, which was anti-slavery and favored such federal government involvement as a central bank, homesteads, railroad investment, high tariffs, and land grant colleges.   The two parties were polarized (the Civil War was about as polarized as you can get) until the end of Reconstruction in 1877.  After that time, the two parties became the type of parties we have today, that is "big tent" coalitions of people from all walks of life, but who come together on a set of more-or-less agreed positions on various issues.  Interestingly, the two parties at that time held pretty much exactly the opposite views of the same two parties today.  It was the Republicans (the party of Lincoln) who believed in big government activism and involvement, and the Democrats who wanted small government and free markets and federalism.
     During the next period of history, the positions of the parties remained substantially the same.  It was during this period that Theodore Roosevelt was president, and I find it interesting that if you read his position papers and speeches, you would swear he was one of today's Democrats, although he was a Republican.  It was during this period that things began to change though, as after Teddy R. left office he was so disappointed in the turn taken by the Republicans that he ran as a third party candidate (the Progressive Party) in 1912, resulting in the election of Democrat Woodrow Wilson.  The parties coalesced into the parties we know today (again more or less) after 1932, and the start of the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt.
     All during this time, the parties selected their candidates by getting together in their conventions and making deals.  Who went to those conventions, you ask?   Leaders of the parties of one kind or another, some office holders, but also many behind the scenes kingmakers.  This was the kind of politics where the famous "smoke filled rooms" were where most of the big decisions were made.
     In the earliest years of the nation, members of Congress would meet with their party caucuses to select a candidate.  By 1832 though, national conventions began.  There were few primary elections until after 1968, which I'll explain in a minute.   At the national conventions, fierce negotiations led to floor votes, and often it took a good many floor votes (called ballots) to select a candidate.  Most of the time, a certain number of votes was necessary to be nominated (like 2/3 of the total) and in 1924, the Democrats took a record 103 ballots to nominate.
     By 1956, when I watched my first conventions, there was little of the drama of years past.  There were more primaries being held by then.  The Republicans nominated Dwight Eisenhower for a second term, and the first ballot was unanimous.  Prior to the convention, there was some doubt, as Ike had a major heart attack, but he recovered well and decided to run again.  There was talk of a new VP candidate, as Ike was not fond of Nixon's expansion of the role of VP, but Nixon was popular in the party and stayed on the ticket.
     1956 was the last of the presidential replays.  The Democrats ran Adlai Stevenson, former governor of Illinois and a brilliant intellectual in both 1952 and 1956.  His competition for the nomination was led by Senator Estes Kefauver, but after Stevenson won the California primary handily, Kefauver's support waned. The big surprise was that Stevenson announced that he would let the convention nominate his running mate, rather than selecting him himself.  John F. Kennedy, who was a newly elected first term senator, made a stab at it, but the convention nominated Kefauver.  Of course, JFK's entry into the fray moved him into position to make his successful run for the nomination four years later.
     1956 was the first year that the TV networks broadcast "gavel to gavel" coverage of the conventions.  NBC had newsmen Chet Huntley and David Brinkley work together on the convention and the team proved so popular that they became co-anchors of the evening news until 1970.  I watched both conventions all the way through, fascinated by what drama there was, but also by the pomp and ceremony.
     As the years went by, I continued to watch the conventions.  I was energized by JFK's campaign and was thrilled to hear him nominated, and later his acceptance speech.  I self-identified as a Democrat, mostly because of my family's political beliefs, but also because of my own developing opinions and knowledge of history and government.  I suffered a setback during the 60s after JFK's assassination.
     Lyndon Johnson did a powerful masterful job of getting the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, as well as Medicare passed in the early months of his administration.  I strongly supported all of these.  However, LBJ escalated the Viet Nam war into a major conflict, and I absolutely opposed that.   I was of draft age, or was approaching it quickly, as were all my friends.  I could see no reason why we were in Viet Nam at all.  I never bought the "domino" theory that if one country in a region fell to communism, they all would.  I had a high school teacher who posited the idea that communism is a self-defeating system.  It has appeal only when the majority is in an underclass, but as the fortunes of the society improve and those people move into a middle class, communism loses its appeal.  That made sense to me, so I was never fearful of "godless communism" as were others.  I felt that we were killing our good young people, wasting our blood and fortune, for no reason at all and that it was an immoral policy.
     The Republican convention in 1968 was held in Miami, and Richard Nixon easily won the nomination.  After being defeated by Sen. Eugene McCarthy in the New Hampshire primary, LBJ announced his withdrawal from the race.  Bobby Kennedy entered the race, as well as LBJ's vice president, Hubert Humphrey.  Martin Luther King was assassinated in March, resulting in race riots all around the country.  Viet Nam war protestors were marching and rioting.  In June, just after his  California primary win, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated.  It was a dark, dark time in America.
     At the Chicago Democratic convention, all hell broke loose.  The city was overwhelmed by protestors.  Inside the convention, many were unhappy with the apparent fact that Humphrey would win, largely because most of us believed he would continue the same Viet Nam policy of LBJ.  George McGovern stepped in as a last minute alternative candidate because Bobby Kennedy had been killed.   Delegates on the floor were unhappy, and Mayor Richard Daley took rather thuggish steps to quell the unrest, resulting in reporter Dan Rather getting punched out on the floor by police.   In the streets, the protests turned into riots, and what was later, after an investigation, described as a "police riot" with hundreds, maybe thousands of protestors being injured by batons, tear gas, and riot guns.  We were living in Idaho at the time, and I remember my friend Dave was visiting and the three of us watched that convention in horror.
     After the debacle of 1968, the Democratic party convened several times over the next four years and fashioned a set of rules to be adopted at the next convention.  The new rules set up a system by which delegates committed to a particular candidate would be selected in individual states by either primary elections or caucuses, and those delegates would be committed to their candidate for at least one ballot.   The 1972 Democratic convention was marked by the arguments and maneuvering to get the rules decided and passed, which resulted in part with George McGovern not getting to give his acceptance speech until so late at night that the east coast watched it at 2 AM.
     Since that time, the selection of a candidate has been anti-climactic.  The candidate who wins enough delegates for nomination in the primaries and caucuses is known by about three months before the convention.  He (or hopefully soon She) selects the VP running mate some weeks before the convention.  As a result, the conventions have become huge multi-day commercials for the candidates, with all sorts of pomp and ceremony and dozens of speeches.  The fun nowadays is in seeing which party is most skillful at producing their convention and in seeing which speeches stand out and are remembered.
     I recall the Democratic convention of 1988, when Teddy Kennedy gave his "where was George?" speech and Ann Richards' line that George Bush was born with a silver foot in his mouth.  Despite these great lines, Bush won.  In 1992, Bill Clinton told us about coming from "a place called Hope."  In 2000, George W. Bush appealed to people with his folksy demeanor, but also with his criticism of Clinton for " a lack of dignity and respect to the presidency" and his promise of "compassionate conservatism."  In 2004, the standout moment was newcomer Barack Obama's keynote speech.
     This year, we were treated to Clint Eastwood's empty chair and the more or less pitiful attempt of the Republican party to produce an effective convention spectacle.  We also got to see a very well produced convention on the Democratic side, which featured a good number of effective speeches, but none so effective as Bill Clinton's explanation of all the difficult issues in clear and understandable terms.  After the convention, President Obama said that he received a "Tweet" suggesting that he appoint Bill Clinton "Secretary of Explaining S---."
     So every four years, you can find me glued to my TV during both conventions, cheering on my side, and looking for weaknesses in the other side.   You go ahead and watch your ballgames.  I'll stick with my sport.

NEXT:  My take on the debates.

   

Romney's Roses

It's been a very long time since I posted on this blog, but it doesn't matter much, since no one reads it anyway.   Apparently.   This just gives me an opportunity to vent.  The internet is a wonderful thing.  I get to be an inveterate smartass on facebook.  I get to blog about music on my website www.terryhillmusic.com  and I can vent at length about other things on this blog.

I've been, as usual, watching the political news.   I've written elsewhere before that my interest in politics came early.  When I was only nine or ten years old, my Grandpa Ryker would bait me and cajole me into arguing with him about some article in the newspaper.  I loved to visit with my Grandpa, so I took to this (reluctantly at first) with eventual enthusiasm.  In Junior High, I devoured the course in Civics and  found it fascinating, largely because it explained many things I'd read about in those newspaper articles, but didn't understand.   All of this morphed into an intense interest in politics and current events.  I'm a news junky.

I'm a devout liberal, always have been.  Grandpa believed that Herbert Hoover was evil, and that FDR was akin to the Second Coming.   My Uncle Loris said, "Vote straight Democrat and you'll never go wrong."  My Mother said, "All my life, when the Democrats are in power, the little guy does well.  When the Republicans are in power, the little guy suffers."  My Dad was a local union leader, at least part of the time.  When I got old enough to understand the issues and make up my own mind, I gravitated to the left.   Sydnee and I worked on the McGovern campaign in 1972.

I sort of reluctantly supported Obama in 2008.  I actually liked Hillary Clinton best, but my big issue was health care.  I strongly believe in a single payer system.  Hillary didn't support single payer.  Obama thought we needed to get there in stages, but said he believed single payer was best.   That tipped my support to him.

While in many ways, Obama's first term has been a disappointment to me, I have to say this:  with the exception of gasoline prices (which is not in the control of the president) every single problem we had as a nation is better today.   Not good enough.  We haven't improved things as quickly or as much as we need, but they are improved.   Maybe it's "slow but sure wins the race."  I disagree with Obama on Afghanistan:  we need to get out now, not in a year or two.   We should be out by Halloween.   I think Obama did the right thing with regard to Bin Laden.  And there are other things:

The stimulus plan was not just a good idea, it was a necessity.  However, Obama, like FDR, failed to go far enough.  The stimulus should have been much bigger.  FDR was faced with the same problem, it was politically impossible for him to do as much as he needed -- Congress just wouldn't go along with it.  So he settled.   As a result, the Great Depression started to recover, then faltered, and by the end of the 1930s, the country was back in depression.   It took World War II to get us out, which was what?   A huge stimulus, but accompanied by hundreds of thousands of deaths.   Obama didn't have as bad an economy to deal with, but it was a similar outcome.  Had the stimulus been bigger, we'd be seeing less unemployment, and more recovery.

Bottom line, I think Obama's done a fairly good job.  His most bitter and angry critics pretty much just make stuff up, and their nasty criticisms are a thin veil for their real objection to him:  the color of his skin, and maybe the sound of his name.  Obama's story IS the American dream.  While he didn't come from poverty, his father did.   And Obama came from basic middle class Mid-western family roots (you can't count his father's family, because Barack didn't know that side of his family growing up.)  Through scholarship and student loans, he managed to go to the best schools and took himself from his Hawaii home where his grandparents worked in a furniture store and a bank, to Harvard Law School.  He worked as a community organizer, which is kind of a combination of social work, law, and politics.  From there, he went on to state politics, and eventually the United States Senate, from where he launched his presidential bid.   If that ain't the quintessential American Dream, I don't know what is.

Which brings us to Mitt Romney.

I was around and paying attention to politics when George Romney, Mitt's dad, was on the scene.  While they share the same last name,  the difference between George and Mitt was day and night.  George was a solid Republican, but he was considered "moderate" then, which would probably be a "blue dog"  or conservative Democrat now.   He ran as a moderate opponent against Goldwater in the runup to the nomination in 1964.

George was born to American Mormon parents in Mexico who were poor, but hardworking.  His parents' fortunes went up and down, with his father working in construction and farming.  George did not grow up the child of wealth -- not your "fortunate son."  He was a savvy businessman of the old school:  he built businesses that built things.  He pretty much saved American Motors by betting on smaller, more efficient cars (the Rambler.)   He was governor of Michigan, and ran for President, famously sharing 12 years of his tax returns.

Mitt, on the other had, was born to wealth.  He's about four months younger than me.   As a comparison, if Mitt and I were running a 100 yard dash against each other, it would be as if Mitt's starting line was about ten yards from the finish, while I had to run the whole 100 yards.  Ann Romney talked about how she and Mitt lived in a basement apartment with borrowed furniture, and about how Mitt paid for his own graduate school "by selling some of his stock."   Kind of brings a tear to your eyes, doesn't it?

Well, my wife and I lived in crummy apartments and houses with hand-me-down furniture, but I didn't have any stock, and my wife, in the first year or so we were married, had to wash diapers in the bathtub with a washboard, because we couldn't afford either a washing machine or a laundromat.  Mitt's "humble" beginnings seemed to me like what it was:  privileged wealth that he did not earn.

From there, Mitt went on to become a successful businessman on his own, ultimately becoming far more wealthy than his father.  But he didn't do it by building a company that build and sold things like George did.  Instead, he did it by building a company that raided other companies, loaded them down with debt, then sold them (off?  out?) at a huge profit.  In the process, most of the companies were forced to lay off hundreds, probably thousands of their employees.   That's where Mitt's wealth came from, and that's what Mitt supports.

Two things resonated with me in Romney's acceptance speech.  First, his sort of appeal to nostalgia, with his repeated references to "return to . . ." and his line about coming from Middle of American in the middle of the century.   Romney seems to be saying "we're in a period of hard times, so I want to take us back in time to. . "  what?   Mayberry?   Bedford Falls?   You can't go back in time, nor should we even want to.  It's fun to watch old movies on TCM and reflect on "the good old days."  But there was always something bad about the good old days.  We can only go forward, and try to progress to something better.   That's what this country has always done.  We progressed from an agrarian society to an industrial society.  We moved from wage slavery to worker's rights, from a 12 hour a day six day week to the 40 hour week.  From women being second class citizens to women voting and holding office.  From slavery and slaves being counted as a fraction of a person to an African American in the White House.   Going backward is not the answer.

The other thing that resonated with me was Romney's story about his father giving his mother a daily rose.  That was sweet, but what it reminded me was that my father couldn't afford to give my mother a rose every day.  My Dad fell trees in the woods as a gyppo logger.  He worked in 90 degree heat in the summer, having to take salt tablets to keep his sodium level up, and in freezing cold in the winter, sometimes having to dig six feet of snow from a tree to be able to fall it.  Dad would bring my Mom wild flowers --  fairy slippers -- home in his lunch box each evening.  They were free.   All Romney's "rose" story did was remind me of the difference between living in wealth and privilege and working hard for a middle class living.  Mitt just doesn't have a clue.