Presidential Nominating Conventions: The Nuts & Bolts

Primary Direct Primary : an election in which party members select people to run in the general election Two Types of Primary Elections: – Closed Primary – Open Primary

Nominating Conventions An assembly held by political parties every four years Usually held in late summer before the general election in November George W. and Laura Bush at the 2000 Republican Convention

Purposes of Nominating Conventions 1980 Republican National Convention in Detroit, Michigan 1.Delegates at the convention adopt a party platform. 2.Delegates to the convention elect that party’s nominees for President and Vice-president.

What’s a Party Platform? Party Platform - a statement of principles and objectives a political party and a candidate supports. Plank - Individual topics in a party ’ s platform (ex: abortion, war in Iraq) Cartoon satirizing the 1896 Democratic Party Platform

Brokered Convention  A situation in which no one candidate in a political party has received enough delegates in the primaries and caucuses to obtain a majority.  Thomas Dewey (R) in 1948 and Adlai Stevenson (D) in 1952 last two candidates selected through brokered conventions.  Rare or impossible in the age of citizen involvement through primaries and caucuses. Democrats avoided a brokered convention in 2008

Network Television Coverage of Conventions

By Paresh Nath, National Herald, New Delhi, India 3/17/08

Political Action Committee Organizations that are established by interest groups to collect money and provide financial support to specific candidates PACS are limited in the amount of money that can be given to any ONE candidate during an election cycle

BiPartisan Campaign Reform Act A bill sponsored by Senators John McCain and Russ Feingold Put limitations and controls on the amount of money that could be spent on individual campaigns Dealing with “soft-money” donations anonymous-political-giving.htmlhttp:// anonymous-political-giving.html

Convention Speeches: The Acceptance Address  The speech given at the final day of the convention in which the winning candidate formally accepts the party ’ s nomination for president  The Acceptance Address is always televised by the major networks 1960 presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon deliver their Acceptance Addresses at their party’s national convention

Convention Speeches: The Acceptance Address

Critics say that party nominating conventions have become no more than infomercials Democratic National Convention in Denver, CO What do you think?

“Don’t Stop” (1992) If you wake up and don’t want to smile, If it takes just a little while, Open your eyes and look at the day, You’ll see things in a different way. Don’t stop, thinking about tomorrow, Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here, It’ll be, better than before, Yesterdays gone, yesterdays gone.