| If you listen to many of the past delegates, they may tell you that it's to party. BobB made that observation, and it's a popular one. Everyone remembers the parties. You can talk about that in polite company. But if you talk to someone who's staffed a convention, they will put it a little differently (perhaps because they don't get to attend the parties, except as minders -- shhh, don't tell anyone I said that). They will probably tell you that the point of a political convention is to launch the presidential nominee, to signal the (official) start of the fall campaign.
All the world's a stage, and the people (delegates) are merely players. You might even call them (the delegates) props. Or "strong visual aides." If it's not the Big Show, it's certainly the start of the television season. At least it was, before 1996.
Before I get too far off point, let's bring it back to the average voter, because that is where the real focus of the Convention's producers lie. Yes, it's a television show -- never forget that. And the point of this television show is to introduce our nominee to the television-viewing public, to people who may never have heard of Barack Obama, or who are wondering, what is this guy all about?
You may ask yourself, who's never heard of Barack Obama??? How did we get here? But talking to real voters, and not political activists, proves that many people -- I call them swing voters, myself -- don't know Barack Obama, don't have a strong impression of Obama, aren't willing to commit to him because they can't imagine him as president.
IOW, they haven't seen him on a presidential stage yet. So, what's the point of a political convention? To give the nominee a stage -- a familiar stage -- upon which to look presidential. To provide the visual cues that voters expect to see in people they are considering for president, that allow them to look as they imagine a president should.
At event after event where I've heard Barack Obama speak, I have heard the same comment over and over: "He even looks presidential!" Sometimes, this is prefaced by "OMG!" And the transformation in people's eyes (minds?) is quite stark, because I've even heard staffers say this. I'm fairly certain they already had made Barack their presidential choice. The visual cues matter.
They make all the difference.
Now I'm not all that visual. So I can't really speak to "production value" and other elements of those visual cues. But I can say that a political nomination convention is the first phase in the general election campaign -- at least traditionally. I've even seen it laid out that simply, with Convention/Debates/GOTV summarized as the three elements of a general election strategy in a presidential primary campaign blueprint. So even if Denver isn't the "Big Show," it is the Big Stage. When Barack Obama steps up on that stage, and lays out the terms of the debate for the fall campaign, there will be millions of Americans who gasp, and say to themselves: "OMG! He even looks presidential!"
And that's the point. But that's not all there is to a convention. That's merely its purpose. The Party takes advantage of the opportunity of thousands of its key activists meeting in the same place. In a sense, the convention is also an organizing tool and a vehicle for instilling the proper Frame in activists for them to take home with them.
There's really no other way to do this. While we look at the internet as a wonderful organizing tool, it's crap for instilling message discipline. Tens of thousands of people who pundit online all have their own idea about the best way to run a campaign, or the best message to run it around, or the best places to focus on. As wise as those thoughts may be, it's doubtful they put much thought into coordinating all three (or with the rest of the campaign). There is only one campaign plan upon which Barack Obama will run this fall, and -- like it or not -- that means there's only one message upon which that campaign plan will be centered. You can either reinforce or distract from that central message, and the convention is a terrific opportunity to do the former.
In state delegation meetings, in the daily caucuses, on the convention floor itself, delegates will be conditioned to think about the fall campaign in a certain way, through a specific frame. They will literally all be on the same page by the end of the week. Ok, maybe not those who par-tay so much that their brains don't properly function. But everyone else.
Hopefully. One year, more than a decade ago, I was assigned to followup with convention participants for the purpose of our post-election analysis. The question I was expected to answer was, "did our delegates take our message home with them and reinforce it from there?" Remarkably, after corresponding with hundreds of delegates, most of them could remember the campaign's message and reported trumpeting it in their local communities. A rough statistical analysis that year showed that localities where delegates reported using our campaign themes and message in their communities did better than localities where delegations or activists admitted that they didn't spread the campaign message in their local communities.
The convention puts people on the same page, and that's good for the campaign. It allows people to play their bit parts, if they are willing to take on that challenge. Delegates probably don't think of themselves as props in a stage show aimed at YOU, conditioned to bring home the campaign message to, well, YOU. We should probably keep it that way, so let's just keep this between us. Denver's a stage, the delegates are your cue that this is a big deal, but you are the real target. Since you won't be exposed to all the reinforcing message frames that the delegates and activists who go to Denver will, we'll have to all work hard to make sure that you get repeated exposure to Barack's message. In person, in your mailbox, in your living rooms. Same as it ever was... |
