From Miami Beach to Tampa, 40 years of fearing and loathing democracy
The last time they held the political conventions in Florida was 1972. It was the summer that I turned 13 years old, and I was falling in love for the first time. With politics, that is.
From Miami Beach to Tampa, 40 years of fearing and loathing democracy
The last time they held the political conventions in Florida was 1972. It was the summer that I turned 13 years old, and I was falling in love for the first time.
With politics, that is.
Forty years ago, Miami Beach -- a half-day’s swamp drive across the sweltering Sunshine State from the hockey-rink home of the 2012 Republican convention – was the pulsating heart of U.S. politics. Terrified by the violence and unrest of the 1968 Democratic confab in Chicago, both parties saw the beachside city, with its gated, spread-out rococo resorts, hippie-friendly police chief and its distance from the hubs of campus protest, as the last safe place in America.
Indeed, the GOP convention was utterly forgettable but for the sight of Sammy Davis Jr. hugging the awkward President Richard Nixon. But the Democratic gathering in mid-July was a completely different affair.
The hook was that the party bosses were threatening to derail the likely – but far from assured – nomination of the anti-war, anti-establishment candidate Sen. George McGovern, even though the South Dakotan had won the most primaries. The “McGoos,” as the left-leaning McGovern acolytes were beat back the challenge – but what sideshows!
“The streets of ’68 are the aisles of ’72!” shouted gleeful reformers, as recounted by author Rick Perlstein in his epic tale of the era’s politics, Nixonland. Battles over the party platform and issues like women’s rights and abortion were waged not behind closed doors but on the podium, where America heard a delegate plead for gay rights for the first time. The cast of characters in Miami Beach included Abbie Hoffman, Shirley MacLaine, Arthur Miller…and George Wallace, all of recorded, in a purple haze, by gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson.
It was impossible for me to avert my adolescent eyes. The tiny 9-inch black and white TV set in my bedroom flickered until 4 in the morning, when the delegates stopped squabbling long enough for the networks to finally play the Star Spangled Banner and cut to the test pattern. On the final night, a roll call for vice presidentlasted for hours as votes were cast not just for McGovern’s doomed choice Thomas Eagleton but Yippie Jerry Rubin, newsman Roger Mudd, even Mao Zedong.
It was crazy. It was messy. It was weirdly beautiful. It was democracy.
And so they made sure it never happened again. When Nixon trounced McGovern – who’d given his acceptance speech at 2:45 in the morning, because of the whacked-out VP balloting – in November, leaders of both parties took extraordinary steps to guarantee that TV viewers would never see dissent, a.k.a. free speech, a.k.a. democracy. Platform fights were moved out of prime time and into what Mitt Romney would call “quiet rooms.”
The notion of debating policy in the public forum of a convention became a quaint relic of the era before television and before the Vince Lombardiazation of American politics, before winning wasn’t everything but the only thing.
I’ve thought about 1972 a lot this week, especially when I saw that Romney’s forces down in Tampa were using the excuse of Tropical Storm Isaac to go extreme lengths to keep shut down challenges from a small band of a couple of hundred delegates supporting libertarian Ron Paul – who hasn’t fully endorsed the ex-Massachusetts governor.
The Republican Party has already imposed a rule that a candidate’s name can’t even be placed in nomination without a majority of delegates in 5 states (Paul has but three). Now, Team Romney wants to move up by one day the roll call of the states – where the candidate actually claims the nomination, a one-time highlight that’s going the way of the manual typewriter – because it’s afraid Paul’s small band of backers will raise a ruckus.
The funny thing is that conventions are where candidates are supposed to show voters there the kind of guy who can stand up to the Iranians or the Chinese or the American enemy du jour. Yet here is Mitt Romney, practically cowering under a table at the idea of giving the Paulities 10 minutes to talk about the gold standard or their fence to keep Americans from fleeing to Mexico.
How sad.
It’s been a long, strange trip in the decades since reporters saw Hunter Thompson peeling out from the driveway of his Miami Beach hotel in his red convertible, a six-pack of beer in the front seat. Democracy was in his rear-view mirror.
What is the sudden interest in Ron Paul? While I think he has the right answer to the country's economic problems that plagued both major parties, I think that you see him as an opportunity to disrupt the RNC and to further your cause for the DNC. Nice try, Mr. Bunch. Do some reading on Mr. Paul and his economic theories, and then come back with a more valid point.— FletcherT- Bunch, wow, you were 13 and you write about it like you were there. Grow up.— blackhawk90
- Will pines constantly for the sixties. He wishes he had been old enough to participate in the goings on as if that would give him some sort of "gravitas" or validation. Some way to find a home for his '60s mind set and world view. Did you also notice the picture is from 1972 democratic convention? Two picture fails in a row.
— georgel - If you were remotely self aware, you would acknowledge the role the left wing media has played in damaging political discourse.— Mr. Smith
- The media isn't left-wing. That's a ruse the multi-millionaire media owners are playing on you. Multi-millionaires don't want change. Think about it. Then read "War Against the Weak" by Edwin Black — justacarpenter
- the dems of course are going to have a serious discussion with sandra and eva. lol— rysagr
- I think we are on the cusp of a great national coming together, an ideological compromise.
It is clear, based on the dialogue of the two parties, that the Republicans only care about the economy, jobs and debt; and the Democrats only care about gay relations, abortions, and bridges and roads.
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan can lead the country to a solution where the gay Democrats can get their abortions, and pursue the conservative solutions to growing the economy. Just to be magnanimous, Romney will give the Democrats a couple billion dollars to build bridges.
Fair compromise?
— Mr. Smith - A fair compromise was making the 2009 stimulus 36.5% tax cuts.
But compromise is a word not used in the republican dictionary. How you can smugly try to corn hole democratic positions, which include helping business to create jobs.
Yet you can simple state the REPUBLICAN POSITION.
We will all become subservient to the Creators, job creators.
We will no longer exploit them with taxes and regulations.
The Creators will pay no taxes.
They will be able to do whatever they wish.
The greatest jobs would be to directly serve our the Creators.— DavidAG - Pretty funny when Ron Paul looks like the conservative. What a pile of dreck.— CiceroSpuriousDeodatus
- Cicero, you don't strike me as a pleasant person.— bp*philly
- So, what you're saying is that your political beliefs have not evolved since you were 13? Got it. How does the saying go, about how one who is young and conservative has no heart, but an old liberal has no...
— jfar86 - "conservative solutions to growing the economy". There are no such solutions. There is the rhetoric, spurred on so that tax cuts may go mainly to the rich. Hedge funds, for instance, want the manager tax loophole reinstated. Its not clear how that will spur growth, other than the pie in the sky supply side myths. If you want a relevant example, just look at the performance in New Jersey. Of course the performance cannot be pinned solely on Christie in his two years in office, but clearly there has been no boost, as noted by his administration. Its really a disturbing trend. The Republicans caring about jobs, debt, and the economy IS the biggest myth going. As is being recognized by greater numbers of concerned, The Path to Prosperity is a total farce. To analysts, its a mystery. There is no substance. Oye ve, what a mess.— Murrayman
- I would love to hear thoughts on why going back to the gold standard is a grand idea only the right can be bold enough to come up with. Wonder if I'll hear any of those ideas in detail? I believe Ron Kovic, with a few of his brothers, were at the '72 Convention. Wonder if things went down the way he said they went down? I enjoy the commentary from Thompson stating the cops were off-balance when a platoon of paralyzed, scarred, wounded Vietnam Veterans showed up on the Avenue outside the Fontanbleu (or however you spell it).— Murrayman
- So Murray votes abortion - yes; jobs, reduced debt, economic growth - no.— Mr. Smith
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