A Brief History of Contentious Conventions

[WeDidIt]

1988 DEM - Jackson goes to the conventiion where his supporters demand he be given the Veep spot because he came in second. Dukakis loses

1984 DEM - Hart goes to the convention, Mondale loses.

1980 DEM - Kennedy takes it to the convention, Carter loses

1976 GOP - Reagan takes it to the convention, Ford loses.

1972 DEM - TOTAL WEIRDNESS at the Dem convention with new rules and non-porportional delegate allocation. Strange sessions starting in the morning and running through to the next morning. McGovern loses.

1968 DEM - McCarthy takes it to Chicago. Riots in the streets. Humphrey loses.

1964 GOP - Nelson Rockefeller takes it to the convention against Goldwater. Goldwater loses.

[AllentownJake]

1. What a pattern

Wonder why everyone wants her to concede? :shrug:

[WeDidIt]

11. It's because everybody knows, take it to the convneiton, YOU LOSE!

[Aloha Spirit]

2. How many of those do you think would have had a different outcome if the other guy had only dropped

out sooner?

I'm guessing maybe two?

[WeDidIt]

3. IT is clear, anybody who wants Hillary to take it to Denver

is desirous of a McCain victory.

There is no other outcome.

[theboss]

Ford and Humphrey could have won their races with a more united party

McGovern could have avoided the Eagleton disaster perhaps. Carter could have made it closer.

I don't think Jesse Jackson counts as "taking it to the convention." His dispute was more about platform than delegates.

[WeDidIt]

5. I included it for another reason and will edit to specify...

[Oregone]

4. Sounds like a winning strategy

If youre rooting for McCain. Wonder who Hillary is rooting for.

[scheming daemons]

6. Which is EXACTLY why Hillary is taking it to the convention... It's all about 2012 for her

[WeDidIt]

8. That won't work

The only way 2012 is possible for her is to drop out within days of the last primary and fuly support Obama while hoping he loses. Then she has plausible deniability should Obama lose.

If she takes it to the convention, there is no way she will be given a Reagan in 2012. She will have 100% of the blame for the loss heaped upon her shoulders for all time.

[slinkerwink]

7. Yep. That's why we can't have that crazy one go to the convention

[rodeodance]

30. name-calling is divisive and is school-yard behavior of bullies.

[cbayer]

9. On the other hand

The convention with the most similarities to the current situation was in 1932. No candidate that had been running through the primaries had enough PLEDGED delegate votes to take the nomination on the first ballot. FDR won the nomination and the next four GE's.

[WeDidIt]

10. Nope, you're wrong. 1952 fits that bill

where Adlai Stevenson didn't win until the third ballot.

Stevenson lost.

No candidate who was nominated in a contentious convneiton since World War II has won the general election.

[cbayer]

12. True up to a point.

Stevenson didn't really run. He did not go into the convention in a dead heat with Kefauver. In fact, he said he was not a candidate. He was nominated at the convention, which was held in Illinois (his home state), and the Chicago machine got to work.

You may be right about the contentious elections. I was speaking more to a hotly contested primary season with no candidate getting the required number of pledged delegates prior to the convention.

At any rate, I think this election cycle has been highly unusual and would not predict the outcome based on history, because there is no comparable scenario since FDR.

[Drunken Irishman]

13. The problem, that was in the 30s and 50s, no one cared.

I doubt anyone cared back then or paid as much attention as they are. It's going to be the perception of the fight, from station to station, that will hurt the Democratic Party in November.

[AllentownJake]

14. In addition

Primaries and caucuses didn't matter in the 30's. Remember in 1968 there were only 15 contest.

[cbayer]

17. You are kidding, right?

WW1? WW2? Korea? The depression? Civil rights?

The passion was deep and raging. It is easy to dismiss the politics of the past.

[AllentownJake]

18. Nobody had a vote in that time period

it was decided by party leaders is the point he's making.

[cbayer]

21. Again, true up to a point.

There were less primaries, more caucuses and much more backroom deals due to that fact. I am sure he appreciates your defending him, but what he said is that no one cared, and that is just not true.

[Drunken Irishman]

23. Ok, I was wrong, a few people cared.

But as a whole, most of America was NOT following the conventions back then. It just didn't happen, not like it is today.

[cbayer]

24. Sweet!

I agree with you!

[WeDidIt]

27. Don;'t worry, I got what you were saying.

[WeDidIt]

19. The nominating process was a whole different animal then

Primaries and caucuses as we know them today simply were not the standard fare in producing a nominee.

[Drunken Irishman]

22. It's true.

There wasn't 24 hour news back then, people weren't nearly connected than they are now. In fact, most probably didn't hear who the Democrats nominated until a week or so AFTER the convention.

[Peace Patriot]

26. I don't know about this--that people "weren't nearly as connected" then, as

they are now. True, the party bosses made a lot of the key decisions in their "smoke-filled rooms," but who were the party bosses? They were often people with close, deep connections to their constituencies. They knew their people well; they knew their needs and their opinions; they were very involved in the nitty gritty of serving those communities, in peoples' day to day lives. And they were well aware of the impact on their communities of who the national leaders were. Compare that to the huge distance between the party leaders and the people that developed during the Reagan through Clinton period. We LOST that intimate connection. We LOST that door-to-door activism of party leaders and the many volunteers they inspired and roused. I remember what that was like. That grass roots organization will still going in California when I was a teenager. I was RECRUITED to do door-to-door, through the California Democratic Council, a grass roots organization that had "party bosses" in every precinct. The CDC was the left wing of the Democratic Party--a very powerful, on-the-ground organization, comparable to labor unions back east.

I think our citizens today--until the Obama campaign--have been very alienated from politics, and have found the corporate-TV conventions very BORING. Yeah, we have instant news, but of what? Yet more millionaires deciding our fate--and clouds of political bullshit from "talking heads" that has nothing to do with our lives. Back in the days when it took a week to get the news, when the news came, it REALLY WAS NEWS, and it sparked celebrations and active participation. There was also party discipline in the way that, no matter who got the nomination--whether it was someone you supported or not--the on-the-ground organization got to work on mobilizing the voters in support of party PRINCIPLES (labor rights, civil rights, regulation of big business, help for the "little guy" against the moneyed powers, etc.). We've also lost many of our common principles, as corporate-controlled party leaders more and more took over the party. NAFTA was perhaps the final breach between ordinary Democrats and the corporate-controlled leadership. The Democratic Party stopped being the "party of the people" when Clinton broke his campaign promise to include labor and environmental protections in NAFTA. Our party leaders no longer represented the working class. But that breach had a history--involving the disconnection of the party leadership from the people, over several decades.

Yeah, I'm saying there was more connection back in the day of "party bosses" and slow communication. They got us the leader we needed--FDR--and kept him in office for four terms! And what has the primary system produced for us? The primary system was supposed to democratize the process. Has it? I think we had better candidates when the "party bosses" chose them. The primaries allow the rightwing corporate media monopolies, and, as of 2002-2004, corporate-controlled "trade secret" voting machines, to determine who our candidates are, and then to determine who wins in the GEs. It's quite interesting what happened with the insurgent Obama campaign, early on. Where Obama first got his edge was in the caucuses--which are not counted by Diebold & brethren. His momentum then and since has come from the people--the grass roots, the citizens hungry to participate, and passionate to produce a change in the political system. The grass roots sans "party bosses." It's really quite interesting (not to mention heartening) that our corporate bosses were unable to dictate who our nominee will be.

I have not seen anything like the Obama supporters and activists in this country in more than forty years. And they've done it without "party bosses", and, indeed, against the wishes of the corporate bosses who took over (to our detriment) from the "party bosses." I don't know what will happen--at the convention or afterward. I tend to think that Obama will wipe the sidewalk with McCain, whether or not Clinton "takes it to the convention." If she does, one thing is certain--it won't be boring!

[WeDidIt]

16. That does raise an interesting point

I think that if Hillary Clinton takes it to the convention that Obama will win on the first vote.

When he comes into the convention hall after he wins the first vote, his speech should be this:

I decline the nomination. My primary opponent wants this so bad that she fought me even after I had won by every measure. I therefore defer the nomination to Hillary Clinton. Thank you.

and then walk out of the convention hall without another word.

It would end the Clinton era forever and she would end up being the losing nominee instead of Obama since the Democrats will lose no matter what if it goes to teh convention.

[Peace Patriot]

25. Wrong! 1960! Big fight between Stevenson (leftist) and Kennedy (centrist).

I remember. I was there (not old enough to be a delegate, but outside, and following things closely--I was one of those very young activist Kennedyites--and my boyfriend was for Stevenson!). And a bitter, bitter fight it was (not with my boyfriend--we were friendly rivals). The Stevenson supporters even hauled him into the convention, on their shoulders, trying to segue his popularity into a nomination. Kennedy won the nomination and the GE, despite a pissed off leftwing of the party. It was close, though. Some say the Chicago machine stole it for Kennedy--something I have never believed. Any shenanigans for Kennedy were surely matched by MORE shenanigans by Richard Nixon. (Can there be any doubt, considering what he did later?)

Anyway, the OP doesn't go back to 1960--a convention that belies the thesis that "all" contentious conventions result in loss of the GE.

[AllentownJake]

15. How many contest did FDR win?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_Democratic_National_Convention

I see nothing about Primaries here.

[cbayer]

20. I have also had trouble finding that information.

He won most of the primaries, but did not have the necessary number of pledged delegates to win on the first ballot. Differences were that he needed 2/3 and there were no SD's.

[WeDidIt]

28. Kick

[sfam]

29. You're not suggesting that Hillary is trying to make us lose, are you?

Say it ain't so!!!