Convention ‘whips’ reign in spontaneity Delegates, attendees follow detailed queues

BOSTON – When John Edwards appeared before a deafening crowd at the Democratic National Convention late Wednesday night, more than 10,000 Edwards campaign signs turned the hall into a virtual sea of red in front of a national television audience.

All according to plan.

Reflecting the sophisticated bent of modern political conventions, on-floor coordinators – neon-yellow vested individuals called “whips” – communicate with backstage staff so that little is left to chance.

“Those signs don’t go up by accident,” said Charlie Baker, one of the architects of the convention’s logistical precision.

Baker helps run the “boiler room,” located down a dim, heavily secured hallway off the convention floor. If a convention is one long television show, this is the production room that drives the on-stage show.

In the boiler room, there are about 7 large tables with more than 50 phones connected to whips for each of the 50 states and U.S. territories. Six television screens help track all of the major televised convention coverage simultaneously, and anywhere from 60-150 people staff the boiler room at any one time.

The whip for the Maine delegation is Mark Ouellette, a 37-year-old Kerry delegate from Scarborough.

Ouellette, who wears a yellow vest on loan from a fellow delegate and decorated with close to 100 political pins, said he attends a daily 3 p.m. meeting with all the whips and the boiler room staff to go over the day’s assignments, such as what kind of visual props and crowd reactions are needed, by who, and when.

Ouellette’s lifeline to the boiler room on the convention floor is a three-and-a-half foot podium with phones on the side and buttons that light when he’s being paged. There also is a microphone at the side in addition to a computer screen.

On Wednesday, Ouellette said things start coming to life at about 8 p.m., the beginning of prime time watching hours. Before long, he said, the boiler room will call him with directions.

“Then I’ll let [the other Maine delegates] know a speaker’s coming up,” he said. “And we need a lot of excitement.” Or perhaps they’ll see that someone’s sign is blocking a camera, and they’ll tell them “Signs down! Signs down,” he said.

Before a speaker comes out, he said, runners will bring out the necessary campaign signs from the back, where thousands are kept during the convention.

Former Vice President Walter Mondale said that such technology is a relatively recent phenomenon, but one that has had a positive impact on the conventions.

“High-tech is [used] a lot more efficiently than it was in our time,” he said in an interview on the noisy convention floor.

Gwethalyn Phillips, a four-time DNC delegate from Maine, agreed that better technology has smoothed out conventions’ rough edges.

It used to be very intense getting messages back and forth between the boiler room and the delegations, she said.

“The old time conventions would go on all night,” she said.

Despite the coordination between the boiler room and the whips, conventions still contain a high level of unpredictability. Ultimately, delegates – and even some speakers – will do as they please. One example this year was Wednesday night’s speech by Rev. Al Sharpton in which he diverted significantly from his prepared speech.

“You can’t coordinate Democrats, you know that,” Ouellette said. But, he added, “We do the best we can.”