Political conventions can provide needed comic relief

When I read Thursday morning’s newspaper headline reporting that Democratic vice-presidential nominee Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina had promised delegates to the Democratic National Convention at Boston that “hope is on the way” I was hoping the man was fixing to do something about the lousy weather that has ruined The Season Formerly Known As Summer.

No such luck.

Turns out that using his pull with the Almighty to get us a sunny day or two between now and Election Day was not what Edwards had in mind. Rather, his game plan for bringing hope to the sodden long-suffering proletariat concerns the eviction of President George W. Bush and his Republican cronies from the White House in order that John F. Kerry and his Democratic cronies – having already measured the joint for new curtains – might move on in.

Following an edict to keep all convention rhetoric “positive” and refrain from Bush-bashing, Edwards told the cheering delegates they must reject “the tired, old, hateful, negative politics of the past [read Bush administration].” And he accused Republicans of “trying to take this campaign for the highest office in the land down to the lowest possible road…”

Other convention speakers accentuated the positive equally as well. Better, even, if you include Kerry’s outspoken wife, Teresa, who told one reporter whom she claimed had misquoted her to “shove it.” Sounds like my kind of gal. The country may not be ready for Judge Judy as first lady. But if it is, I should think that covering such a lashup would be an assignment that any reporter with even a minimal appreciation for the well-turned phrase would passionately lobby his boss for.

Political conventions may well have outlived their usefulness, as some pundits have suggested. Today’s candidates are generally anointed long before the convention opens, killing whatever suspense there may have once been in that regard. Platforms are pretty much a joke mercifully forgotten before the last hangover has been cured. Strict security measures turn the experience into an ordeal topped only by the sheer boredom of the oratory. Compelling television it ain’t, a fact that the commercial networks long ago twigged in to. And the amount of money it costs just to fire up the party faithful is scandalous.

As well, everything appears staged with an eye toward The Perfect Photo Op, as in John Kerry steaming up the Charles River with his Vietnam War combat buddies to the convention site, a not-so-subtle reminder of which presidential candidate has the combat experience and the medals to prove it, and which one can’t find his Alabama Air National Guard duty records. (If your image from that made-for-television photo op was of George Washington and his Revolutionary War troops crossing the ice-clogged Delaware River at Trenton to surprise the enemy during the brutal winter of 1776, well, the candidate will take that too, I suppose. But Jeez, Louise. Get with the program, huh?)

A great thing about political conventions is the comic relief they provide, much of it coming from the know-it-all talking heads on the televised shouting matches between One From This Side and One From The Other Side that purport to be incisive analysis.

Half the time it’s impossible to understand the question, let alone guess what the answer might be. Not that the person being quizzed would ever get caught giving a straight answer. Watch the proceedings long enough and you’re apt to be rewarded with an exchange like this:

Mr. Cocky Talk Show Host Guy: “Sen. Halftrack, give me your assessment of how your candidate will promulgate the integrated transitional mobility of the various synchronized options vis-a-vis the present manpower requirements in Iraq, in light of recent Third World assessments of the State Department’s recently announced ongoing review mechanisms and programming goals.”

Sen. Halftrack: “Like I said before, John Kerry’s health care plan is not only for the wealthy, it’s for all Americans.”

Kerry’s convention-ending speech Thursday night was a pretty good one, well-delivered, although if you didn’t sense which way the wind was blowing after the first couple dozen mentions of his Vietnam War heroics of 30 years ago your intuitive skills probably ain’t what they used to be.

By Thursday, Sen. Edwards’ oft-stated promise that “hope is on the way” had morphed into Kerry’s repetitive “help is on the way” and it turned out that both were right. The hope was that the Kerry speech would end sometime before August. The help would come later from television’s talking heads who would explain why what I thought I had just witnessed was not what had actually happened.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.