It’s hard to say, exactly, what constitutes a “successful” political convention. The media generally looks to see how well the party sticks to its schedule, keeps the rank-and-file motivated, and maintains a consistent message. In that sense, this year’s GOP convention was terrific.
But that’s hardly a helpful criterion. Making the trains run on time is nice, but hardly impressive. Making true believers happy should be a relatively easy task, especially for Republicans inspired by blind faith. A consistent message is important, but what if that message is consistently wrong, divisive, and dishonest?
With this is mind, I thought I’d share my Top 10 reasons why this year’s Republican National Convention was a debacle. In no particular order:
10. Two words: Bush twins.
9. Republicans took pleasure in mocking wounded soldiers.
Even leading Republicans said yesterday that things went a little too far when they had to publicly repudiate the actions of a delegate who was handing out adhesive bandages marked with Purple Hearts to mock Mr. Kerry’s war wounds.
The bandages, distributed by Morton Blackwell of Arlington, Va., included a message that read, “It was just a self-inflicted scratch, but you see I got a Purple Heart for it.” Mr. Blackwell said he was only trying to have fun, but the Military Order of The Purple Heart, an organization that says it represents wounded veterans, was not amused.
The group’s national commander, Robert N. Lichtenberger, said his 38,000 members were “outraged that an award that has been earned by them for shedding blood on the battlefields of the world would be so denigrated by using it for the purpose of political advantage.”
8. Dick Cheney’s speech was — surprise, surprise — intentionally deceptive.
7. The party adopted a far-outside-the-mainstream, hard-right platform.
6. Those that had the least to say were given a platform; those with the most to say were arrested.
5. The Democratic convention was about Kerry — and the Republican convention was also about Kerry.
The anti-Kerry tirades that have filled the convention, however, are less of a diversion from an otherwise terrorism-themed convention than a purposeful and coordinated assault on Kerry himself. The Republicans want to convince America that the public hates John Kerry, that the public thinks John Kerry is pathetic. At the Democratic national convention, the crowd chanted along with the phrase “hope is on the way.” At the Republican national convention, Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele mocked that optimism, and the crowd chanted, “But not John Kerry.”
4. The convention ignored the major issues of the day, preferring to be relentlessly negative about their opponents.
3. Those with the most power were seen the least.
2. Zell Miller lost his mind on national television while delivering Bush’s keynote address.
A critic could credibly describe Senator Zell Miller’s speech to the Republican Convention as angry, misleading, or both. But to dwell on either the tone or veracity of Miller’s text somehow misses the point given the scene that unfolded at Madison Square Garden last night. In an address originally billed as a critique of John Kerry’s national security credentials, Miller essentially branded the Democrats as traitors because they haven’t fallen in line with President Bush on all matters of national security. It was one of the most vile political speeches in recent American history, every bit as offensive as Pat Buchanan’s infamous call in 1992 for “religious war” and, perhaps, a little more disturbing. Buchanan’s speech, after all, was an assault on decency. Last night Miller declared war on democracy.
1. When all eyes were on Bush, he didn’t have anything to say.
For $2.4 trillion, guess what word — other than “a,” “and,” and “the” — occurs most frequently in the acceptance speech George W. Bush delivered tonight. The word is “will.” It appears 76 times. This was a speech all about what Bush will do, and what will happen, if he becomes president.
Except he already is president. He already ran this campaign. He promised great things. They haven’t happened. So, he’s trying to go back in time. He wants you to see in him the potential you saw four years ago. He can’t show you the things he promised, so he asks you to envision them. He asks you to be “optimistic.” He asks you to have faith.
“Since 2001, Americans have been given hills to climb and found the strength to climb them,” said Bush. “Now, because we have made the hard journey, we can see the valley below. Now, because we have faced challenges with resolve, we have historic goals within our reach and greatness in our future.”
Recession. Unemployment. Corporate fraud. A war based on false premises that has cost us $200 billion and nearly a thousand American lives. They’re all hills we’ve “been given to climb.” It’s as though Bush wasn’t president. As though he didn’t get the tax cuts he wanted. As though he didn’t bring about postwar Iraq and authorize the planning for it. All this was “given,” and now Bush can show up, three and a half years into his term, and start solving the problems some other president else left behind.