Don't Expect Any Suprises At the RNC

Add a Comment

August 13, 11:43 AM

by Dominic Patten, Pop Culture Examiner

 

 

IF ANYONE CAN DO IT, THE CANDY MAN CAN

What if they held a convention and nobody came?

What if they held a convention and nobody watched?

It's Pop Culture questions worth asking, as we are just over two weeks from the opening of the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis/St. Paul on September 1st.

Year after year, the networks have cut and trimmed, spliced and diced their coverage of both the Democrats and the Republican hootenannies. The airwaves might be public, and it might be a chicken and the egg equation but for ABC, NBC and CBS, the public doesn't seem all that interested as the rating decline for their convention coverage year after year.

Polls show that both the public and the media, with the exception of CNN, the Fox News, the MSNBC and C-SPAN who seem to cover it all at nausea, have tuned out because they find nothing surprising or newsworthy happens at the conventions.

And, with John McCain long designated at the presumptive nominee what surprises can we expect except who the Vice-Presidential nominee will, be - and, unless it is a real clunker, that's a one day story at best.

But that's what the Republicans seem to like. 

No surprises.

The GOP invented the modern political convention with it's cued balloon drops, scripted spontaneous demonstrations from the floor, mass produced homemade signs and endless salutes to the nominee. 

So when you're watch, if you watch, the RNC this year, say a word of thanks to the late H.R. Haldeman. 

The former ad man and former Nixon White House Chief of Staff may have gone to jail for 18 months for his significant part in Watergate but he sure knew how to put on a show.

Before Richard Nixon and Haldeman things actually happened at conventions. After Nixon and Haldeman, things were scheduled at conventions. Now the only things that happen at conventions are they start, they end, fewer people watch and the networks given them little primetime coverage. 

Conventions, especially Republican conventions are like a sport whose sole purpose is to keep the people who play it fit. Outside the players, nothing else matters or for that matter seems to exist.

OK, it's a bit like the high production value of American Idol but without the drama, the songs, the quirky judges, the smarmy host...actually putting it that way, it's nothing like American Idol and it sure doesn't have that Idol's ratings.

In fact, you can bet if all goes to plan there will be no drama.

C'mon, it's not like John McCain's going to suddenly announce that he has really wanted to give George W Bush a knuckle sandwich for roughing him up eight years ago during the 2000 Republican primaries. Or that McCain is going to tell President Bush to hit the road for saddling him with a stalemate war and an stagnant and weak economy he really had nothing to do with. It's not like there's going to be a real debate on the platform, except to print the thing on red paper or plain paper to appeal to either the hardcore base or the swing voters. It's not like they're going to invite Barack Obama over to state his case on their podium or that Dick Cheney is going to reveal his light heart dinner table banter or do a duet with Elton John.

Like a bad variety show, you know exactly how the GOP convention is going to go. Its predictability is what the people who are putting it together and most of the almost 5,000 delegates and alternates attending depend on. 

But predictability, as the Barack Obama campaign knows for better and sometimes for worse, doesn't cut it in 2008. 

Where is Sammy Davis to give us a hug when we need it?

That time the seasoned song and dance man wrapped his arms around a shocked Richard Nixon in '72 was the last time anything spontaneous of significance happened at a Republican Convention...it made a lot of people very unhappy at the time. 

And to prove it was a great pop culture moment, it also made a great dream sequence on Tina Fey's 30 Rock earlier this year.

   Subscribe   Feed

Include other special offers from Examiner.com
Terms of Use