Election Watcher's Companion 1968 [antikvár]

The Collective ActAmericans instinctively think of their country as young, an inexperienced member of an ancient community of established nations. Somehow, its poUtical institutions still appear greeneven though, in the 178 years since the U.S. Constitution was estabhshed, France has seen two monarchies, five republics and two empires; Japan has moved from medieval feudalism to modern dictatorship and finally to effective democracy; and the British have changed a royal autocracy into genteel parhamentary socialism.It comes as something of a surprise to most Americans when they are reminded that their system of Presidential nominating conventions is actually one of the oldest working poUtical institutions in the world; the conventions are 136 years old, and they have nominated U.S. Presidents 34 times. Venerable as it is in the short history of modem democracy, the American system of conventions comes in for scant reverence. Noisy, boring, cliunsy, wasteful of time, money and human resom-cesthese are the commonest charges leveled at the conventions. Worse, many regard the conventions as undemocratic forcing houses presided over by the professional pols, hard-eyed men sharpening their axes on the futiu:e of the RepubUc and fiUing the air of cau-cus rooms with the fumes of intrigue and cigar smoke. Such complaints have been heard so long that there must be some truth in them, and so there is. But even the bitterest critics of the conventions find it difficiUt to avoid looking on. "There is something about a convention," wrote arch-skeptic H. L. Mencken, "that makes it as fascinating as a revival or a hanging. It is vulgar, it is ugly, it is stupid, it is tedious, it is hard upon both the higher cerebral centers and the gluteus maximus, and yet it is somehow charming. One sits through the long sessions, wishing heartUy that all the delegates and alternates were dead and in heUand then suddenly there comes a show so gaudy and hilarious, so melodramatic and obscene, so imimaginably exhilarating and preposterous that one Uves a gorgeous year in an hour."What makes the conventions so excitingpotentially, at leastwhat makes them so worthwhile in spite of their drawbacks, and what has made them so durable is simple. They work. Like the Mayfly, national party conventions Uve Uves of spectacular brevity, but they are essential for propagation of the species. The convention exists only to adopt a party platformas a basis for the campaign and to nominate candidates for the Presi-