Matthew Moore: For more than 50 years, the national conventions of the two leading political parties in the United States has been pretty rote. This year’s Democratic National Convention taking place in Chicago this August might be a bit more unpredictable. Here to help explain the history, procedures, and expectations of the convention is Skip Rutherford, a key advisor to Bill Clinton during his presidential runs and dean emeritus of the Clinton School of Public Service. Skip, welcome back to Ozarks at Large.
Skip Rutherford: Matthew, thank you. Thanks for having me, and obviously we're in an interesting political time. You know, for about three weeks from the recent debate through the attempted assassination, through the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump clearly had the vast — mostly all — of the momentum. But on his final speech, which goes back to the convention acceptance speech, he opened the door. He had a chance, I thought, to basically nail the door shut, but he rambled and went off, and it was not a healing speech. It was like he was back on his campaign trail again. And he gave the Democrats just a surprising opportunity. And that then followed up with President Biden stepping out and Vice President Harris stepping in. And over the last 36 - 48 hours, the momentum has completely shifted to the Vice President in terms of not only interest, but in terms of party unity, and in terms of fundraising. So, it shows you that momentum has a limited shelf life. And in this particular case, right now, it's certainly in Kamala Harris' favor.
MM: Well, let’s take a step back here. The Democratic National Convention dates back to the early 1800s, but for our purposes today it’s probably best to go back to the 1970s and that era. Can you set the scene for us on the political climate and describe the McGovern commission?
SR: Well, it was interesting because in the 1970s — and for that 1972 convention, it was the first time that I was able to vote — and the convention was dominated, in large part Matthew, by the Vietnam War. It followed the 1968 convention in Chicago, which was known for all the riots and so forth. The McGovern Commission basically opened up the delegate selection process and it started allowing grassroots organizations to have it say in who attends the convention. It wasn't just the party bosses and the elected officials as we looked at the 1972 convention. One interesting aspect of that, which has an Arkansas flavor, is that Wilber Mills was nominated for president in 1972. And the Arkansas delegation was for Wilber Mills except for one person who cast his vote at the convention for George McGovern. And that is Steve Smith of Fayetteville. He’s a former professor, former legislator and he voted for McGovern. Steve and I are friends, we became friends in college, and I remember sitting there watching on television thinking, ‘My gosh, Steve Smith is making the name for himself out there and voting against this home state guy and voting for this new kind of progressive movement that McGovern led.’
You followed those conventions, and you pointed out, that most of the time these are just cheerleading sessions. They're very uncontested — or at least result contested when you get there. I was there at the 1992, 1996 and 2000 conventions. And in ‘92, there was a Jerry Brown challenge to Bill Clinton, and there were other candidates, but it was basically done both on the Democratic side and on the Republican side. It’s an opportunity to cheer and to unify and to celebrate. But 2024, given what has happened, does kind of take on a new perspective.
MM: So, as we're sitting here, the AP has reported that Vice President Kamala Harris has ascertained enough delegates to move forward with the nomination process at this point. But it's not quite as simple as that, I suppose. You know, we still have to go through the confirmation of the delegates who do affirm that they're going to choose Vice President Harris as their choice for the nominee. If you could put on your prognosticator hat for just a moment, do you believe that there's a chance at all that Vice President Harris is not the nominee?
SR: No, I think it's done. I think what we saw in the last 36 hours has been just a major shift. I mean, a major like, okay, we're going to unite behind her. The dollars are coming in for support. She was on a phone call the night before with 40,000 black women last night. She was on a phone call — and a friend of mine was on that phone call and called me afterwards and sent me an email afterwards — Harris was on the phone call with 27,000 black men, and they raised a million dollars on that phone call last night, just from the 27,000. So, she's consolidating a grassroots base. So, I don't think there's any way that she's not going to be the nominee.
Now what's going to happen because of the nominating rules and state rules that there's going to be a virtual roll call by August the 7th in which the delegates will cast her votes and clearly nominate her. I think she's already gotten 2700 out of 4000. But then there will be a convention, which will be confirmed, they'll confirm it, but the nomination will have already been done by August the 7th.
Now, the real question is how does the convention structure work. What's Biden's role? What's her role? Is a new vice president named at the convention or before the convention? Do former presidents Obama and Clinton show up? I mean, there's a whole bunch of things to go with the convention, but clearly, it's an opportunity for her to continue the momentum and deliver a major acceptance address. So, I think you're going to see a convention that is not going to be much of a surprise in who the nominee is. I think you're going to see a convention that basically says we have about 100 days or whatever to get behind her and we're back in the game.
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