If the 10 presidential nominating conventions in the US that I covered as a foreign correspondent from the year 2000 onwards, the most exciting were the Republican National Convention in New York to re-elect President George W Bush and the Democratic National Convention in Denver that paved the way for the election of America’s first black president, Barack Obama.
The 2004 convention in New York was more memorable for its perversions, which became a bigger talking point than what went on in Madison Square Garden, where Bush, at the zenith of his popularity after the US invasion of Iraq, was easily renominated.
Four years later, the Denver convention is remembered by most political reporters as the culmination of the hopes of the American people in the devastating aftermath of the financial meltdown of 2007-08. Revulsion in the US over lies by Bush about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for invading Iraq made the mass gathering in Denver more of a movement than any predictable political meeting.
I learned more about the innards of the American political facade during the New York convention than at any other single event while reporting from the US, which is unquestionably the most open system in the world for journalists.
As a frequent visitor to New York to cover the United Nations, what I noticed on the eve of that Republican convention was a visibly steep increase in the number of escorts in the lobbies and bars of five-star hotels in Manhattan. Well before the convention opened, The New York Daily News ran an article predicting that demand for escorts would be at an all-time high when the Grand Old Party, a moniker for the Republicans, would be in town. As it turned out, the Daily News story was only a teaser. The reality far outstripped the tabloid’s prediction.
The GOP convention mirrored the utterly boring persona of President Bush. Even more so, of the uncharismatic disposition of Vice President Dick Cheney, who was often referred to as the “real US President” during that period. So, like the ‘silly season’ that newspapers in the West dread, the US media went into in-depth reporting of a different kind at the Republican convention. A gem of the week came from Mark Morford, a columnist of the well-respected San Francisco Chronicle. His humour column is credited with having coined a delightful pun on the Iraq war’s purported weapons of mass destruction. Morford’s imaginary conversation between two ladies dressing up for an evening quotes one of them as saying that her Republican customers were weapons of destruction, just with a letter off mass. For the other lady, the convention was all about launching missiles of a different sort.
The Denver convention did not merely nominate Obama as the Democratic candidate for the 2008 election. It was the coronation of Barack and Michelle Obama by the party faithful. The wild celebrations during and following Obama’s nomination spilled over from the Pepsi Center convention site to the Invesco Field football stadium for the acceptance speech, and then to Denver city. Such revelry added a new term to America’s political lexicon—Obamarama, like the Kennedy presidency came to be known as the Camelot.
It was the only “open convention” in US political history because of its mass participation beyond the ritual balloons, ribbons, tickers and confetti falling from the ceiling on the assembled delegates. A capacity crowd of 85,000 filled the Invesco stadium to hear Obama. It was a record for any presidential acceptance speech in US history.
For the opening of Washington’s newest museum, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, a special film was made eight years ago. It is now one of the museum’s popular exhibits and has the title ‘August 28: A Day in the Life of a People’. Several landmark events in US black history, all of which took place on August 28, are featured in this film. One of them is Obama’s presidential nomination in Denver.
It is now entirely forgotten that in Denver, Howard Dean, the then chairman of the Democratic National Committee, predicted that a person of Indian origin would one day become US president. He did not have Kamala Harris in mind. She was then just the district attorney of San Francisco, not even a state-level official in California. But she had already hitched herself to the Obama bandwagon. Harris was the first elected official in California to endorse Obama in 2008. That decision was the key to her future successes. Harris has never looked back.
On Day 2 of the convention, Dean came to the hotel where the Indian media was staying and told us, about 10 correspondents, that Indian Americans “are leading the charge to strengthen our party, elect our candidates and ensure that we build a government that lives up to the ideals that inspired generations of Indian immigrants to make America their home”. That was probably when the Democrats publicly acknowledged for the first time the growing profile of ethnic Indians in US politics.
Later that evening, at a side event organised by the Indian American Leadership Initiative, Dean went further. He said that convention delegates in Denver may “include the first Indian American who will manage a presidential campaign. Perhaps they include a future Democratic president of the US”. Recalling Dean’s speech now, when this is very likely to happen come January, is like having listened to an oracle.
The Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month was unlike any other. To parody Abraham Lincoln’s description of democracy, it was a convention of one family, by one family, for one family. The assassination attempt on Donald Trump also created an atmosphere in Milwaukee that was bizarre.
Historically, Chicago has been a favourite location of Democrats for their nominating conventions. During this August 19-22, the party will again meet in the city to nominate Harris as their candidate. At the time of writing this, very little is known about this gathering because of the eleventh-hour candidate change. Enthusiasm will not be lacking, which would have been the case had Joe Biden been the nominee.
(Views are personal)
(kpnayar@gmail.com)
K P Nayar | Strategic analyst