Chicago: A Compelling Convention

    Chicago was the 24th convention I've covered, one of the five most compelling.  The   transformation from only a month before, with bleak prospects to one of realistic hope, brightened the mood strikingly for the nominees, other speakers and the delegates.
   There was such enthusiasm and energy it's worth opening the notebook a final time.
  First, my other conventions’ starting five. It began with the initial two Republican gatherings I covered.  The 1976 GOP convention was the last to open without a certain outcome. The Gerald Ford - Ronald Reagan contest was decided by a closely contested rules vote; a score of delegates going the other way would have changed the nominee. The lobbying was intense.  Four years later, presidential nominee Reagan and ex-President Ford seriously considered teaming up in what one participant called a co-Presidency.  At the Wall Street Journal we were preparing a front page story about the "dream ticket" when GOP chair Bill Brock motioned me to the edge of the podium and whispered it was dead, Reagan was turning to George H.W. Bush. My colleague, James M. Perry rewrote the big story in less than a half hour.  Someone had taken a photo of Brock whispering to me; he later signed it saying  he’d saved us from 500,000 papers with an embarrassment. 

   In June 1992, Bill Clinton, the Democratic nominee, was in third place in the polls behind President Bush and Independent candidate H. Ross Perot. At the convention the theme was Clinton's humble roots -- the Man from Hope -- and right after, the Democrat surged to a lead.  In 2008, it was about inspiration as delegates were nominating Barack Obama to be America's first Black President and celebrating the last political appearance of the Liberal Lion, the dying Ted Kennedy. 
   In Chicago last week most everything went well with a couple minor exceptions: clock management, when President Joe Biden was speaking after midnight and Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz didn't start until 11:22, when East Coast audiences start to drop off.  And there were a few bitter Biden staffers blaming Nancy Pelosi and others for pressuring him out of the race.  They spared him a humiliating defeat. 

   The less predictable moments that will be etched in memories, include:     The larger story was all success: The acceptance speeches, the familiar political superstars, the best political bench in memory, were exceptional.  

  The Walz Family. These are magical middle Americans parents and kids. The Vice Presidential nominee's son, Gus, who has a nonverbal disability, charmed everyone when Walz was accepting the nomination, blurting out, "That's my Dad."   It was especially emotional for those of us with a child with disabilities. 
  Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. In a passionate speech embracing Kamala Harris, AOC graduated from the leader of the radical political bomb throwers to the Bernie Sanders' successor, leading the party's left wing, inside the tent. If you're investing in political futures, look at the 34 year old Bronx congresswoman.
  The Gun shooting survivors: The heartbreaking stories of moms and teachers who witnessed the gun slaughter of loved ones, especially children, were powerful.  I know any gun safety measure is a slog even with frightening stories . There can be small progress: President Biden got a modest measure passed, and  from 1994 to 2004 there was a ban on new assault weapons.  Maybe  some resistant politician will recall the words of Uvalde, Texas' Kimberly Matro-Rubio, who lost her ten year old daughter, Lexi, in that assault weapons school massacre: "Parents reach out for their children. I reach out for the little girl I will never hold." 

Chicago: With a spectacular week, the stigma of the 1968 violent Democratic convention faded. The Palestinian protests were mild in part because the city and police prepared so well.  Yes, the Windy City has far too much crime and mayhem. But contrary to Donald Trump's assertion that “it's a War Zone," the violent crime rate is higher in Indianapolis, Ind, Little Rock Ark and Springfield, Mo.  Most delegates and journalists didn't spend any time in the most crime ridden sections of the city.  But Chicago is not the crime capital of America. 

  The contrast

At the Democratic convention, three Presidents, one current and two formers spoke. (The other, former President Jimmy Carter, has been in hospice for more than a year and half, turns 100 years in five weeks and his family says he's hanging on to vote for Kamala Harris.) In Milwaukee, however, former Republican President George W. Bush wouldn't have been welcome or comfortable. Neither would Senator Mitt Romney, the last nominee before Trump, nor the two most recent Vice Presidential nominees, Paul Ryan and Mike Pence. The Democratic party has challenges and problems. Not so the Republican party as it now more a Trump cult.