The election of a president for the United States has become a phased process.
We watch the winnowing of candidates through political party debates. Since the Democrats were on the outs, more than 20 candidates beat on each other through a series of debates. Some folks fell off the page by their own inarticulate rantings. Others stayed alive for a while until some scandal or 20-year-old blunder was unearthed. One-liners and gotchas eliminated a few more. Mercifully, the process ended with less than 10 candidates still in the horse race.
The Republicans occupy the White House. The incumbent was the sole choice and there was no need for a candidate debate.
The second phase of the process is primaries. Once again, the Democratic primaries pitted a short list of Democrats against each other. Bernie and Joe emerged as the leaders until the South Carolina primary. Joe then swept the rest and the Democrats had their candidate.
We just finished the third phase of our uniquely-American electoral process. The traditional conventions were anything but conventional.
The COVID-19 pandemic tossed the old formula of joyous crowds waiving home state banners, hootin’ and hollerin’ for four days out the window. There were some similarities in the prepackaged made for television and social media variety shows.
Both parties featured 5-minute or less sound bites with perfectly made up and coiffed speakers, whose delivery gaffes were corrected. You don’t get a chance to do that on the convention floors. Both parties had carefully-crafted themes that were tested in focus groups and fine-tuned, to neither offend the base or lose potential converts.
There were also substantial differences. The Democrats hoped we would believe in Joe Biden as a tried and true person with empathy who would knit our fractured country back together. His choice of Kamala Harris as the vice-presidential candidate met his promise to women and demonstrated his sensitivity to the issues of great importance to African-Americans and others concerned with racial injustice. The Democrats theme was that this election was a battle for the soul of America.
The Republicans said that everything was better after four years of the President’s leadership and that we would all be at great risk due to socialism and anarchy caused by the opposing candidate. Their theme was make America great again, again.
Did these unconventional conventions achieve their goals? The polls don’t show the usual “convention bounce” for either side. The television ratings were terrible.
The highest ratings occur on the last night, when the presidential candidate accepts the nomination. President Trump was watched by 23.8 million viewers. Joe Biden was watched by 24.6 million. Both numbers were down from the 2016 election, even though many millions of new voters have registered in the past four years. This columnist actually watched all eight nights, from 8 p.m. until it was done.
Now we move on to the next phase of the electoral process. The candidate debates have been scheduled. Given the lack of quality of the 2020 primary debates and the “we go high when you go low” foolishness of the 2016 debates, maybe House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is correct. Let’s cancel the debates, as well as the political ads and move on to the election. I would be quite happy to read my mail and see what the platforms said the candidates would achieve if elected.
The Democrats would require an 80-page read. The Republicans said they did not need a new platform.
Just more of the same they started in 2016.
Roger Carlton is a columnist for The Graham Star. He is a council member for the Town of Lake Santeetlah.