Decline and fall

The major party conventions are history. With nomination suspense and platform controversy out and televised spectacle and fund-raising excess in, it’s history without a trace of democracy’s spontaneous tumult. More like a well-scripted Roman orgy.

Republicans in Philadelphia – at least those who wrote sufficiently large checks – got cruises on the Amway corporate yacht. Bigger checks bought a round of golf with a member of Congress. Generous Democrats in Los Angeles enjoyed private shopping sprees at Armani. The exceedingly generous got to hear Barbra Steisand belt out “Happy Days Are Here Again.”

Corporations for both or either party bought good will and prized access by shelling out dearly for the convention skyboxes no sane executive actually wanted to sit in. They laid out delicacies from beyond the empire’s borders at lavish receptions. Union Pacific hosted swell parties at both conventions on luxurious cars from the golden age of rail. United Airlines made friends with Democrats by offering discounted fares to Los Angeles; its merger partner, USAirways, did the same for Republicans going to Philadelphia. Call it working both sides of the runway.

These “conventions behind the conventions” were private affairs, definitely not intended for prime time. Democrats don’t emphasize the $500,000 it takes to enter the Chairman’s Circle. The secret society connotation may appeal to donors, but it sure doesn’t play in the heartland. And the GOP certainly did not want the public to know that it costs $250,000 to join its Club of Regents, an unfortunate name that conjures the very aristocratic image the party wants to shed.

The cheesy glitz of these swap meets would be far less offensive if what was being swapped wasn’t, ultimately, public policy. It would be far, far less offensive if the public wasn’t paying a significant part of the tab.

When Congress revised campaign-finance laws in 1974, part of the post-Watergate reforms, it provided for public funding of conventions to prevent influence peddling. This year, each party received $13.5 million in taxpayer money, theoretically to select nominees and to develop platforms. Instead, that money was merely a down payment on the roughly $40 million each party spent on these revels. For its contribution, the public got no bread and the circus wasn’t all that entertaining.