PLEASE HELP: Democratic Convention History Lesson Needed

[arwalden]

When was the last time that the Democratic nominee was uncertain? Why would it have been uncertain? Didn't they have primaries that would have sealed the deal? Or was another system in place at one time?

-- Allen

[NoPasaran]

1. Primaries are a relatively recent phenomenon

For much of American political history, delegates were controlled by state party machines and were often pledged to "favorite son" candidates... a governor or senator or other state political leader. Nominees came out of the wheeling and dealing in the proverbial smoke-filled rooms.

I'm not sure when the last brokered convention was, but the 1924 one took more than a hundred ballots to nominate someone to lose to Calvin Coolidge.

[LTR]

2. Earlier in the century

The Republicans seemed to have problems choosing nominees. Harding was chosen in the proverbial 'smoke-filled room'. Some of the guys running against FDR were also involved in ugly battles at the convention.

I do recall the Dems in 1968 having problems rallying behind Humphrey. But he eked by on the first ballot.

Alfred Smith didn't get the minimum number of votes on the first ballot back in 1928. He fell 10 short of the 735 needed. John Davis ran into the same problem in 1924, it was the longest deadlock of any major convention in US History. Davis, Smith, and William McAdoo were battling it out for the nomination.

Had to dig out my presidential reference book for this one.

[LTR]

5. More

http://www.ehistory.com/world/amit/display.cfm?amit_id=1616

By all rights the Democrats should have been hot prospects in the election of 1924. They had enjoyed impressive results in the congressional returns of 1922. The Republicans had been scarred by the scandals of the Harding administration and had as their candidate the competent, but dull and uninspiring, President Calvin Coolidge.

When the Democrats descended on New York in late June 1924 all the rich variety that went to make up the party coalition crowded into the old Madison Square Garden and proceeded to tear itself apart. In the winter and spring prominent politicians from several states declared themselves as favorite son candidates and began to rip at each other with great bitterness. This left raw and exposed many of the vicious divisions within the party.

The two leading candidates represented the potential for disaster if the delegates could not get together. Former Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo of California drew most of his support from the south and west where the Ku Klux Klan was then enjoying one of its periods of resurgence. He was Protestant, farm-oriented, and favored prohibition. Across the way was Al Smith of New York, an urban Catholic who hated the Klan and favored the repeal of prohibition.

As the voting proceeded it was clear neither could achieve the necessary two-thirds of the votes to win, but both, feeling it a matter of honor, stayed in. One-hundred-three ballots later the party dumped them all and nominated Ambassador John W. Davis of West Virginia, but it was too late. The Democrats were crushed in November and did not recover until in the depths of the Depression they ran with Franklin Roosevelt.

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=451

In 1924, Democratic prospects in the upcoming presidential election seemed promising. The administration of Republican Calvin Coolidge was rocked by a scandal, called Teapot Dome, that involved secret leasing of the navy's oil fields to private businesses.

But the Democratic Party was deeply divided. The Democratic party was an uneasy coalition of diverse elements: Northerners and Southerners, Westerners and Easterners, Catholics and Jews and Protestants, conservative landowners and agrarian radicals, progressives and big city machines, urban cosmopolitans and small-town traditionalists. On one side were defenders of the Ku Klux Klan, prohibition, and fundamentalism. On the other side were northeastern Catholics and Jewish immigrants and their children. A series of issues that bitterly divided the country during the early 1920s were on display at the 1924 Democratic Convention in New York, including prohibition and religious and racial tolerance. The Northeasterners wanted an explicit condemnation of the Ku Klux Klans. The fine vote was 546.15 for the Klan, 542.85 against it.

The two leading candidates symbolized a deep cultural divide. Al Smith, New York's governor, was a Catholic and an opponent of prohibition and was bitterly opposed by Democrats in the South and West. Former Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo, a Protestant, defended prohibition and refused to repudiate the Ku Klux Klan, making himself unacceptable to Catholics and Jews in the Northeast.

(snip)

Al Smith and William Gibbs McAdoo withdrew from contention after the 99th ballot. On the 103rd ballot, the weary convention nominated John Davis of West Virginia, a former ambassador to Britain. The nomination proved worthless. Liberals deserted the Democrats and voted for Robert La Follette, a third party candidate. Apathy and disgust kept many home. Just half of those eligible went to the polls. The Democrat got 8 million votes. The Republican candidate, incumbent president Calvin Coolidge, 15 million.

[Raven]

3. 1982? When Teddy challenged Carter?

I don't think anything has changed but I might be wrong. It seems to me that you could go into a convention split on the candidate and the party platform. Credit goes to the Dems this year for the unity. I think delegates are only required to vote fot the candidate who won their state on the first ballot so if someone doesn't win on the first ballot, the convention could be wide open. Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this.

[LTR]

6. 1982?

It was 1980, and it went all the way to the convention.

But Carter had no problem getting the nomination, and got it on the first ballot.

[Raven]

8. Sorry...1980.

Am I right about delegates being free after the first ballot?

Also, I recall that in 1968 there was a groundswell on the convention floor for Ted Kennedy and if he had encouraged it, there would have been quite a fight. I also remember that at that convention, the Alabama Wallace delegation was unseated. I can't recall how that happened but it was pretty dramatic!

[readmylips]

4. That's just repig talk....

Kerry was a star during the Vietnam protests. He organized protests and testified in Congress which was televised all over the country. Kerry has been in politics for 20 years.

Compared to Prez Clinton when he was running, who was a total stranger. America knows Kerry well, and the repigs know it. Little bush/potty mouth cheney have spent over 100M$ to tarnish Kerry's record. It has not worked. Why? America does know the high quality and integrity of John Kerry.

[hatrack]

7. The last real floor fight was in 1956, and was for VP

Stevenson threw open the VP choice to the delegates. JFK made a good run at it, but was finally beaten by Estes Kefauver (of organized crime investigation fame). Good move for Kennedy, who went national in the course of a single evening with a gracious, funny concession speech, bad move for Kefauver, who, with Stevenson, lost overwhelmingly in November.

Before that, as others have noted, you really have to go all the way back to the 1920s for a Democratic nominee being picked in the trenches of the convention.

[larryepke]

10. Well, in 1932,

FDR wasn't nominated until the fourth ballot. (The party still had the 2/3 rule at that time.) Then Democrats nominated the incumbents until 1952.

[KharmaTrain]

9. The last "contested" open convention...

...was in 1928 when Al Smith won after dozens of ballots...the 1924 election was even worse...it went 100 plus ballots. It got to be a joke. In those days, delegates were selected by state and local parties and the process to nominate took over a week. I just read an article about the 1924 convention...it took nearly 3 weeks to complete. I don't think we'd have the stamina for that.

The last real primary battle that made it to the convention was 1968 as there were a lot of RFK delegates that hadn't committed...they were released but the Kennedy family didn't endorse anyone going into the convention. Humphrey already had enough delegates for a first ballot nomination, but if the Kennedy block merged with the McCarthyites it could have really made for a wild convention. Instead, several former Kennedy backers talked George McGovern into placing his name into nomination (that later set up his run in '72)...he was the "safe" vote for Kennedy delegates who didn't want to vote for either Humphrey or McCarthy.

The convention process is fascinating history since it has changed with several major changes in our society...transportation, communications and social values.

Cheers!

[JHB]

11. Current Primaries System Dates to the 1970s

The start of the demise of the "political bosses in smoke-filled back rooms" system can be pretty much dated to 1964 and the controversy over whether to seat the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party ( http://www.fact-index.com/m/mi/mississippi_freedom_democratic_party.html ) delegates at the Democratic Convention in Atlantic City (remember, since the GOP was "the party of Lincoln", the segregationist establishment in the South were still Democrats, and they won a bitter fight not to seat the MFDP delegates).

Within a few years the Civil Rights movement, joined by the Women's movement and other forces for political reform had acquired enough clout to reform the party selection process (which historically shut them out) and make the (large-D) Democratic Party more (small-d) democratic. The Republicans had to pretty much do the same (though a few years later) partly to keep up "fair" appearances, partly out of necessity from the post-Watergate disarray, and partly because it better suited the "southern strategy" of poaching traditionally-Democratic groups.

Of course, no good deed goes unpunished, and the demise of the "boss" system meant that candidates had to take their message to the people, and that costs money. Thus, while on the one hand making politics more inclusive and democratic, modern primaries have also helped create today's "campaign donations uber alles", money-driven, and deeply corrupted political landscape.

[arwalden]

12. THANK YOU ALL... For The Helpful and INTERESTING Info.

-- Allen