Michael Barone, student of politics, sees little modern role for party nominating conventions other than as advertising specials for the parties and their tickets.  In an interesting piece in this morning’s Wall Street Journal, Barone considers the difference between now and that time many decades ago when the conventions were a "communications medium" for the parties themselves.  "Conventional Wisdom," Wall Street Journal (Sept. 17, 2007) at A17.  Party members who knew each other little or not at all, representing the parties at the state level, would assemble to "communicate, negotiate and reach an agreement."  Conventions have outlasted this function; communications needs are met other ways, and now the parties come together, more or less, to display their wares for the larger public, to kick off with fanfare the general election campaign.

     As proposals are considered for the reform of public financing, the Barone piece is the occasion for considering the growing doubt that taxpayers should foot the bill, as they do (in part) with check-off dollars under the current public financing arrangements.

     Critics wonder why, if the convention period is a boozy bacchanal and a show business extravaganza, the public should have any conceivable interest in paying for it.  A communications medium for intra-party communications is one thing; colored balloons and speeches of numbing similarity delivered one after another to an empty hall is another, not obviously worth the public investment.  Networks seem to capture this sentiment, cutting their coverage and yielding to cable while saving their prime time for profitable entertainments.

     To the extent that conventions are still a topic for "public policy" discussion, their reviews are poor, holding them up as an egregious loophole, for the expenditure of "soft money."  The Campaign Finance Institute has made a particular point of this.  It has authored studies purporting to show that as time goes by, even more soft money, with fewer outlets elsewhere, are rushing through the channels still available at the conventions. 

     This is where things stand, then:  the conventions are seen to be a massive party and advertising opportunity, stage-managed with the help of barely regulated donations and so devoid of natural interest that little of it is brought to the public via commercial television.

     Another problem is that party politics hold limited appeal for a voting public with weak party commitments and deep cynicism about politics.  Parties once counted on tapping into strong party feelings with theatre like the conventions.  The excitement, as much of it as there remains, is for the nominees to generate, with the parties left to benefit as much as they can.  But the conventions showcase the candidates, not the parties; and the portion of the program devoted to party does not have wide audience potential.

     This does not add up to the conclusion that parties and their nominees serve no useful, larger purpose worthy of public support.  Just because this is an opportunity for a sustained argument for the ticket—the one such occasion before the campaign splinters into the various state strategies and the spot advertising used to execute them—the public is exposed to a case not made quite this way again, for the balance of the campaign.  The conventions are no less a valuable communications medium for communicating now externally rather than internally.   It may be a massive advertising opportunity, but how is that an objection?

     The objection is presented as a critique of "fakery":  it is the same objection heard all the time against all advertising paid by and controlled by the political advertiser, candidate or party.  All arguments, made to persuade, would seem open to this criticism, which means that, as criticisms go, it is not very profound.  The party and its candidates appear before the public once an election cycle, for a few days but in that time for the most prolonged exposure of its kind, and they make their case.  The country ought to be able to afford this, once every four years.

     The question is how to afford this.  It does not do to complain about soft money when the expense is high and the parties must pay them under confining regulatory restrictions.  The conventions have been assailed for adding to the opportunity for corruption, but little actual corruption originating with the conventions has been alleged, much less established.  But if "corruption" is the concern, and yet there is to be enough money to pay the legitimate costs of conventions, it has to be found somewhere.  The choices are public financing; or, particularly for the "advertising" segment of it (the speeches and not the parties), more broadcast coverage, not less.

     This brings up the question:  what is the obligation of the broadcast industry?  When BCRA was debated, then passed, the news media, including the broadcast news media, demanded reform but broadcasters intervened in the legislative battle to knock out a provision tightening their legal obligation to offer a "lowest unit rate" for candidate purchases of advertising time.  The time they have allocated for convention broadcasts has shrunk.  The news media surely knows that reform, and its objective of a richer democratic politics, cannot come cheaply:  the bill has to be paid somehow, in the public interest. 

Bob Bauer