The Democratic convention is dead — long live the Democratic convention

The Democratic National Convention, as we knew it, was cancelled for 2020. Six months ago, Democrats expected 50,000 of their closest political friends to share in emotional speeches, angry chants and weird outfits with buttons, political messages and patriotic trimming. This year, that kind of cavorting just didn’t seem worth the health risk. In its place, a new convening will try to adapt to a world where friends, neighbors and colleagues can spread a virus that already has taken more than 170,000 American lives.

Democrats will host several hours of speeches broadcast on social media and cable, with broadcast networks airing highlights and headliners each night. The political junkies among us will miss the quadrennial homecoming, but will it matter to anyone else? And once Americans can sit next to strangers in tight spaces again, is it worth the $70 million to $100 million these things cost for a bunch of politicians and their courtesans to have a multi-day infomercial punctuated by corporate-financed happy hours? 

The short answer is, yes. 

Political parties have changed in relevance over the past century. In the old days, party bosses haggled over nominations in smoke-filled convention backrooms, so there was no telling who ultimately might come out on top. The modern system has all but eliminated that kind of horse-trading. In the 1970s, Democrats took power away from the “bosses,” opened the nominating process up to the public, and made primaries and caucuses matter. In the 1990s, they made nominating contests proportional, which opened them up even more. 

In the modern system, the nominee was pretty clear before delegates packed their bags for the convention. Yet, threats of discord were never far. The impending convention helped bring Hillary Clinton’s never-say-die 2008 campaign to a close and the televised delegate vote on the floor chilled Bernie Sanders delegates’ threats to walk out of the 2016 convention. In the end, as predicted, the person with the most delegates won.

Those reforms made conventions less newsy, and broadcast networks have used that predictability as a sheath for their argument to limit convention coverage. 

The primary impact of the political conventions has been to focus public attention on the party or candidate arguments for the campaign. For two weeks going into the fall campaign, the public gets focused on the two opposing arguments. If a campaign is facing trouble, the convention is a great place to change the narrative. If things are going well, conventions springboard the nominees into the home stretch with an emotional boost.

But, is anybody still paying attention? Yes. As one political operative told me, “It’s a spectacle. Even non-traditional outlets like Comedy Central want a piece of it.” That’s right. Political conventions are like the Super Bowl; the hoopla is all-encompassing. It’s hard to escape. 

The audiences for these every-four-years festivals are huge. They rival the Summer Olympics. In 2008, Barack Obama and John McCain each got about 39 million combined viewers across all major networks for their prime-time speeches. In 2016, Hillary Clinton got nearly 30 million viewers and Donald Trump more than 32 million, not including digital streaming or public television. The “2016 Olympics coverage averaged 27.5 million viewers across all platforms,” according to Variety.

So why don’t the networks want to cover the conventions? I agree with the view that it can only be one thing: advertising revenue. They can sell ads for the Olympics. They can’t for the conventions. 

Conventions also give the press, political operatives and candidates a chance to get to know each other in ways that pay off down the line. The most successful Democratic candidates were highlighted at conventions before they faced the broader public. Mario Cuomo’s 1984 speech made him the most longed for Democratic candidate for the next eight years, and Barack Obama’s 2004 speech launched his candidacy for president four years later. It’s not just the big speeches on the main stage; politicians address small state party breakfasts and caucus meetings. They have coffee and cocktails in hotel lobbies with reporters who operate like baseball scouts looking for the next generation of all-star pitchers. 

If we didn’t have political conventions, we would have to invent them — and this year will reinvent the Democratic convention in new ways. The Obamas, Clintons, Joe Biden and vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris will broadcast their speeches from remote locations. Party business has been done by internet video meetings and conference calls. New social media tactics, short-form video and remote broadcasting techniques won’t go away. The coronavirus conventions will provide a testing crucible for new approaches that will define the future, but be sure, conventions are here to stay. 

Jamal Simmons is a Democratic campaign strategist, CBS News analyst and hosts #ThisisFYI on Instagram and Facebook. Follow him on Twitter @JamalSimmons.