Unconventional Nominations?

Conventions

Two national political conventions are scheduled this summer. Will either one take place, should either one take place, how do the candidates get nominated without them?

Well first let’s look at the conventions and the problems inherent in holding them three months from now.

The Democratic National Convention was to be held at the 18,000-person Firserv Arena in Milwaukee Monday July 13 through 17. It has been postponed to Aug. 17 and at least for now ostensibly remains scheduled. However, the Democratic National Committee has authorized a review to determine if there can be a way to convene a virtual convention.

The estimates are that holding the convention in Milwaukee over the space really of a week with delegations and the like arriving starting Saturday, July 11, and party personnel and news media even ahead of them, will bring 50,000 people to Milwaukee.

Convention planners have reserved about 16,000 hotel rooms for use by attendees, about 10,500 rooms in Wisconsin including as far away as Madison and Green Bay — Milwaukee has only 5,500 rooms. The balance of about 5,500 rooms would be in northern Illinois in the northern suburbs of Chicago as far as 60 miles or more away from the convention site.

One report from last September said the paucity of rooms in Milwaukee would result in 31 delegations being housed there and other places in Wisconsin and 25 delegations using Illinois hotels. The California delegation alone needs 600 rooms according to that report.

By comparison when Philadelphia hosted the 2016 Democratic National Convention it offered more than 46,000 hotel rooms in and near the city. In convention terms near usually means no more than 30 miles, not 60 or more.

The 50,000 traveling to the convention include delegates and alternate delegates, Democratic National Committee personnel, support staff, more than 10,000 people from the media, thousands and thousands of people from the Democratic Party superstructure, donors, corporate sponsors, and the like.

Most will have to travel by air, another complication that would be no complication at all in normal times. Once they get there they would have to be shuttled to and from the convention site all day and night long, a huge transportation operation in normal times but, in the midst of the pandemic, a total nightmare to sort out.

The Republicans as of last week according to their convention chairwoman intended to go right ahead to theirs at the 20,000-person capacity Spectrum Center in Charlotte, N.C. where the same number of people, 50,000 are expected with about 18,000 hotel rooms in the Charlotte region.

Obviously, for the Democrats all the hotel bookings in July had to be unraveled and rebooked for mid-August and might at some point need to be canceled altogether.

For Republicans, all their hotel arrangements, for now, remain in place. All those attending would like those in Milwaukee who need constant ground transportation shuttles.

And if either convention is held no matter how many show up for them, whether 50,000 each or some lesser numbers, everyone needs to be fed – three times a day but in what restaurants or hotel dining rooms open with what allowed capacities? Delegates could be well advised to bring salami, cheese, and bread for a week.

In 2016 CNN operated a restaurant right in the convention sites for the convenience of its employees and celebrities and of course delegates. It was open from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. each day at each convention. In Philadelphia at the Democratic Convention, it served 3,800 guests who consumed among a long list of goodies  991 hamburgers, 3,300 pints of beer, 284 orders of chicken and waffles, 628 scoops of ice cream, 2,100 cocktails, 501 deviled eggs, 481 soft pretzels and 488 orders of Mac ‘N Cheese.

That was but one small venue with limited access at the convention center. The real logistics involving  50,000  people finding two or three meals a day, not to mention the alcohol that lubricates politics with all the restrictions and fears now concerning restaurants? Good luck with that.

So, given all this, with no one knowing if the pandemic is really subsiding, with no one knowing how it will behave in the next three months or where the worst afflicted nation in the world will be, are these two conventions going to be held, should they be held?

Remember, as been noted here before, at both conventions the party’s candidates for president and vice president will be present in a sea of people. Every U.S senator and non-incumbent candidate, and every member of, or non-incumbent candidate for the House of Representatives will be present for their respective conventions as will all governors, former presidents, other high ranking governmental figures, and high ranking party officials.

They would or will all be at risk in the convention venues, which perforce are hothouses for communicable diseases – huge public arenas with tens of thousands of people moving all the time close to one another, sitting and standing with virtually no physical separation, breathing on one another as high powered air conditioning systems move the air around them.

Given what we know you do not have to be an immunologist to understand that is a potential Covid-19 stew in two very large Petri dishes, the Spectrum Center and Firstserv Arena.

But as to the Republicans they and we know that Donald Trump wants his convention and that he will give it up only in extremis, putting enormous partisan pressure on North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat up for reelection this year who could or would make the ultimate public health decision to halt it.

Most likely medical and common sense will prevail to reduce the duration and the footprint of the GOP convention if not move it entirely to an on-line virtual format. But for now what is known is that Trump wants his convention and wants it badly.

Nominations

Let’s dispose of the easy one. Donald Trump will be nominated without so much as one vote for any other conceivable candidate.

Whether that is done insanely over four days in Charlotte or one day there which would still be nuts, he will be the candidate. The Republican National Committee at some point if and when wisdom and sanity prevail – a dubious proposition now in that party and in its president’s White House — will no doubt figure something out.

A pure guess only because it could work and be somewhat sensible – a virtual convention during which to soothe the president every delegation casts its unanimous vote for him followed by an online balloon drop and an acceptance speech somewhere away from the White House. All of it televised of course.

One way or another, though it’s hard to imagine at a live convention no matter how truncated, the Republicans will figure out how to nominate Trump and Pence for second terms and do it with lavish praise and by acclamation.

That’s the easy one. Getting Joe Biden nominated, that’s the harder one.

As of May 10 Biden had accumulated 1,437 of the 1,991 first ballot delegates he needs to be declared the nominee. In second is Bernie Sanders with 990 delegates. The rest of the field had accumulated 164 delegates before they all dropped out and endorsed Biden. They are the easy part. They have or can release their delegates to join the Biden bandwagon.

Bernie is the tough part. So far as we know, he wants his name placed in nomination with a big speech and seconds to tell us yet again why he is right and why we should have Medicare for all and all the rest he prescribes.

But that means there has to be a roll call unless after being nominated he then withdrew and he called for a Biden nomination by acclamation. He is the only one who can do that without causing his supporters to push back angrily. One presumes it’s being negotiated. It shouldn’t have to be. Sanders should finally give it up. But, he is himself so for now expect the expected.

It is most likely that at some point the Democrats will admit the reality – that there can be no convention, that there should be no convention. It would then be up to the Democratic National Committee and the Biden campaign to work our the details of a virtual convention. A roll call if Bernie stays in, possibly a roll call anyway if he gets out.

A likely keynote address by someone, perhaps from the Sanders side of the party in the interest of unanimity. A dramatic touch? Bernie himself. Probably not. And necessarily, there should be a prominent place for black Democrats to acknowledge their centrality in the Biden win and going forward to November.

Then of course there has to be the nomination and confirmation of the vice-presidential candidate, nominating speeches on behalf of Biden to lay out the case for him to be president and of course acceptance speeches by both.

Oh, and the balloon drop. Gotta have one of those.

All of that can be figured out and all accomplished in some fashion virtually with TV coverage.

But putting a plan like that into motion almost requires that Biden lock up the nomination on his own. At this point all the remaining primaries, most of them delayed from their original dates, will be held through mail balloting, starting May 22 with Hawaii.

After that there will still be 12 states holding primaries, including New York on June 23 and New Jersey on July 7. Connecticut’s on August 11, just six days before the new convention date is the last scheduled state. June 2 is the heaviest date with primaries in Rhode Island, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.

With all that, Biden should get to 1,991 delegates by the end of voting in New York on June 23. Somewhere around Aug. 17 he will formally become the Democratic nominee. Somewhere around Aug. 24 Trump will formally become the Republican nominee.

As this is closed and posted, Election Day is 165 days away.