US elections | Virtual party conventions are dampeners

Donald Trump

The historical significance of the virtual conventions of major political parties in the United States this month is that they expose the United States electoral process to a potentially chronic illness that has no precedent in American history.

National conventions at which the top tier candidates on the quadrennial election slate accept their party’s formal nomination have historically been launching pads for future presidential careers both in the Democratic and the Republican party.

When Barack Obama delivered his spellbinding keynote speech at the July 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston — which nominated John Kerry as the party’s presidential candidate — that speech, in part, had the effect of persuading his Republican opponent to withdraw from the contest for an Illinois Senate seat which Obama was then trying to wrest from the Republicans. The Boston convention was the starting point for Obama’s road to the White House four years later.

When the Republican National Convention was held in Minneapolis-St. Paul in September 2008, it was widely expected to trigger a presidential bid by the first Indian American Governor in the US, Bobby ‘Piyush’ Jindal, a prime-slot speaker at that jamboree. However, Jindal had to cancel his appearance because Louisiana, where he was Governor, was in the direct path of killer Hurricane Gustav. Mitt Romney, who was Governor of Massachusetts, was a prime time speaker at that convention and became the Republican presidential candidate four years later.

The virtual conventions of both parties this time, devoid of the shower of confetti and balloons, cheerleaders, and most of all, the arena settings necessary for scintillating speeches, leaves the field empty of exciting presidential choices for the American people in 2028, if not four years earlier.

Michelle Obama is the most appropriate example. A bedazzling orator who often outshined her husband, candidate Obama, during the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, the former First Lady was nothing short of a disaster at last week’s virtual Democratic National Convention. The party gave her the pride of place at the event, hoping that it will give a bump for Joe Biden’s quest for the White House.

She performed miserably on many counts. A natural orator who has no need for a teleprompter, Michelle was ill at ease, recording a prepared speech. According to the party grapevine, there were several recording sessions. The one she finally approved was a session that was done in early August, nearly three weeks before the convention. Its unforgivable drawback: not a mention of Kamala Harris, Biden’s running mate, because at the time the speech was recorded, Biden had not yet closed in on the California Senator as his vice-presidential pick.

With or without a traditional, pre-COVID-19-style Republican National Convention this year, there is no clear front-runner for the party’s presidential nomination four years from now or in 2028. US President Donald Trump’s public persona has been so overwhelmingly self-centred, his style so completely personalised that no Republican has emerged since the 2016 convention in Cleveland as an alternative power centre for the party’s future.

Trump has vilified, discredited or neutralised anyone in his party who has shown even a small streak of independence and reduced the ‘Grand Old Party’ into a one-man reality show that he used to run before seeking public office. Under normal circumstances, the Vice-President should have emerged as a potential successor in 2024. Mike Pence has merely performed the job of being Trump’s doormat dutifully since he came to office. As a result, Pence’s image is so utterly colourless to be put up for the most powerful office in the world after Trump inevitably exits the centre stage, even if he wins his second term.

Obama continues to be Trump’s pet obsession. The US President has never got over the truth that only in Gujarat could he have a crowd anywhere nearly as large as the one Obama mobilised in Denver to watch and hear him accept the nomination, for the first time, as a Black candidate of a major American political party.

Before COVID-19 thwarted his plans, Trump decided that his endorsement for a second presidential run will take place in Charlotte at a festive convention that will be remembered for many years to come — that was where Obama was re-nominated for his second term in 2012 at a star-studded convention.

Confirmation of this rumour is impossible, but it is said among Republicans in hushed tones that First Lady Melania Trump is superstitious: that she convinced her husband that if Charlotte was lucky for Obama’s re-election, so would it be for the incumbent couple’s continued residence in the White House.

KP Nayar reported from Washington as a foreign correspondent for 15 years. Views are personal.