Open Convention

Hey man you shouldn’t do that

Don’t you know you’ll stain the carpet

The FT has an amusing piece titled “Democrats are too scared of a contested convention.” As a former Democrat, I'm all for an open convention. At this point, it’s the only way I'm going to keep from losing $200. As I'm seeing the idea pop up in respected, errhh, established media, let's delve a little into this and how it might play out.

First, absolutely the Dems are scared of an open convention, well at least much of the Democratic political class, but they've been scared of a lot of things, if not everything, for decades. Democrats have not had a convention that went beyond a first ballot since 1952, the first televised convention. For a century and half, the conventions had been put together every four years to do one thing, pick the presidential candidate. The parties' power, both Democratic and Republican, were not at the national level, but at the state and local levels. The conventions attending delegates were chosen by local and state parties in a variety of ways, the nomination process always a rollicking and contentious affair.

By the mid-20th century with the growth of radio and television, local party organization began to atrophy and die. Primaries, there had long been a handful, began to proliferate, though even by 1960, considered the first television election, there were still only 14 state primaries. More primaries removed delegate selection directly from party control. Delegates were elected both pledged and unpledged to various candidates. In the 1980s, a series of reforms began to pull power out of the rank and file hands and place it where it properly belonged at the top. Rules like the creation of appointed, not elected, super-delegates and Super Tuesdays giving advantage to the best fundraisers and the new professional election campaigns. One reform of the the last decades committed all elected delegates to a candidate. The more local parties decayed and the nomination was pushed into the campaign process controlled by money and professionals, the greater the fear of delegate enfranchisement, i.e. an open convention.

By the 1970s, conventions were archaic, as Tocqueville said of much of the structure of Ancien Regime France, “institutions inwardly collapsed without losing their original shape.” With the nominee known after the last primary, the convention itself became irrelevant. But politics likes tradition, no matter how hollow, so the conventions became four days of unwatched bad television, as if American politics needed any more. Conventions survived as a four day, political class schmooze fest, on a corporate tab.

This year, the people who control Democratic politics, the political class and corporations, would certainly be nervous if not downright frightened to let the Democratic delegates choose the nominee. The old party structures don't exist in any effective power sense, few can swing enough votes to win a precinct much more a county, congressional district, or state. It might be anarchy, a process overly influenced by say a cable news host or a NYT columnist, enough to send shivers down any spine. So my idea for an open convention is a little reform to reflect political reality and assuage fear.

Instead of dividing the convention by states, divide the delegations by corporate sector, after all, they are the only truly dynamic political organization in America today. So, rather than California having 415 delegates, banking and finance would. Instead of Texas' 228, Tech would get that many delegates, so on and so forth with energy, agriculture, pharma. Let's say divide the delegates among the top ten corporate sectors based on last election cycle money giving.

First day, from the podium, an auction can be held deciding what each sector will pay each delegate for their support – thinking of your interests here delegates. Then the next two days, the thoroughly representative delegates caucus and decide who should be the nominee.

Delegate's will be grouped under corporate logos like Microsoft, JPMorgan, and Exxon. When the roll comes on day three, standing under respective corporate stock symbol with a digital readout of the current stock price, —LMT 435.13 — the delegate chair can proudly claim, “The delegates of the great corporation of Lockheed Martin cast our support for the next President of the United States ….!” Now there's a hallowed or is it hollowed tradition.

This will allow a process to pick a new nominee with little fear and it will keep me from losing 200 bucks.

Life in the 21st Century is a reader-supported publication. Please become a paid subscriber.