Political conventions: I can quit anytime I want to!

Political party conventions are to political junkies what honey is to a bee.  Or maybe like headlights to a deer.  Or windshields to bugs.  Something like that.  But you get the idea.  So I'm going to try to limit my posts on the Democratic convention this week to one a day.  Even though I'll be tempted to do more than that.

Even though we know that in practice they are more giant marketing shows than "hard news" events.  Veteran reporter Jules Witcover describes it well:  Conventionally Boring Los Angeles Times 07/25/04.  He says Kerry has "taken the thrill out" of the Democratic convention:

He's done that by choosing his running mate, John Edwards, before the convention has even started and by unifying his traditionally combative, disagreeing party simply by not being the despised George W. Bush. What's there to decide and argue about?

Once again, as indeed has been the case ever since the Democrats needed three ballots in 1952 for Adlai Stevenson to claim the prize, there will be only one roll call for the presidential nomination. It's been even longer since the Republicans had a floor fight; for that, you have to go back to the three ballots it took to settle on Thomas E. Dewey in 1948. ...

With no controversial vice presidential pick and issue differences largely papered over, the convention has become little more than a huge pep rally for the troops for the fall campaign. But still they come, with bells on, once every four years for a front seat at a show that continues, for all its faults, to advertise democracy at work.

The Democrats plan to stay "on message," though they probably can't hope to manage the message-control of the increasingly authoritarian Republican Party.  They want to present a positive image of Kerry without bashing Bush too much, for fear of alienating swing voters.

Even the position of the party and of John Kerry on the Iraq War won't be dramatically different on the face of it from Bush's.  He's taking an approach similar to that of Eisenhower in 1952 on the Korean War ("I will go to Korea") or Nixon in 1968 with his secret plan to end the Vietnam War.  (The latter is still secret, by the way.)

But not all Democrats think this totally-unified-message approach is necessarily the best thing: Democrats go easy on Bush - this week San Francisco Chronicle 07/26/04

Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown recalled the union members who protested on his behalf at the 1992 convention in New York, chanting, "Let Jerry speak! Let Jerry speak!'' when Bill Clinton's campaign tried to deprive his former rival of a forum.

This year's speaking schedule has been tightly scripted by the Kerry campaign, which is carefully screening each speaker's comments in advance to make sure they do not stray from the planned, upbeat message.

"We've reached a rather ironic point in our society, when debate is no longer regarded as healthy,'' said Brown, who is not a delegate but will be in Boston most of the week.

Yet Brown conceded that to have Democrats openly voice their disagreements on the convention floor would be counterproductive.

"The trouble is, if they become too acrimonious, the (elections) become hard to win. TV shows acrimony. The debate is no longer at the convention. It has to be in the primary.''

Juan Cole thinks that Kerry's cautious position on the Iraq War, while it may be driven by more immediately political considerations, is also a pragmatic reflection of the situation that the Bush crew has created for the US there:  Democratic Convention Will not Denounce Iraq War 07/26/04.

I fear this realism is warranted. If John Kerry wins, he will inherit the Iraq morass and will not have good options there. He can't just pull out the troops and leave oil-rich Persian Gulf to fall into chaos. The idea that the international community can be persuaded to come in and rescue us seems far-fetched. We'll just have to muddle through. This outcome is a kind of poison pill bequeathed all Americans by the jingoist party in Washington (both so-called realists and neoconservatives). We broke it, we own it, as Powell warned (threatened) Bush.

It's worth noting that Cole is a severe critic of the Iraq War.  He's opposed to the Bush Doctrine of preventive war, he pointed out before the war that the intelligence claims were exaggerated and that there were huge risks involved in invading Iraq, and he's been highly critical of the way the occupation has been administered.  But he also doesn't see any easy or quick exit.