CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- I have always loved the tradition of the national political conventions (and I have watched the events with great interest this year), but the days of the relevant, traditional convention are long-gone.
Today, national political conventions are nothing more than scripted Hollywood-style events selling one-sided messages to a justifiably cynical electorate.
Nothing that occurred at either convention is likely to have much of an effect on the outcome of the 2012 presidential election. Managed and scripted infomercials or the grandeur of massive balloon drops should not be the basis for the election of an American president.
Mitt Romney and Barack Obama offer vastly different visions of our future. Surrogates -- even grandiose speeches by former presidents -- are no substitute for evaluating the record, promises and vision of those that seek to take the oath of office on Jan. 20.
The simple truth is that nothing newsworthy happened in Tampa at the GOP Convention or in Charlotte at the Democrat Convention. They did, however, spend a lot of our money for nothing more than the equivalent of "days-long" infomercials. They are great events for political junkies, the party faithful and the partisans but the modern political convention does little to add to the national political discourse.
The cost to the taxpayers this year for these underwritten parties exceeds $136 million. Taxpayers directly contribute $18,248,300 to each convention and an additional $50,000,000 for security. That figure does not include the cost for delegates (several thousand per delegate), corporate subsidies (in the tens of millions), lost productivity in the host city, or other costs.
If taxpayer funding of these events did not raise enough eyebrows, corporate contributions to these elaborate events and the role of lobbyists and political insiders should also be a source of concern. When a company receiving $45 billion dollars in the 2009 federal bailout contributes millions to the Democrat Convention despite announcing earlier this year that it was laying-off more than 30,000 workers, the indignation of taxpayers is justified. When the city of Tampa uses taxpayer funds for the GOP Convention to purchase $319,400 for 200 new police bicycles, and $516,000 for new cotton uniforms, the public is justly troubled.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- I have always loved the tradition of the national political conventions (and I have watched the events with great interest this year), but the days of the relevant, traditional convention are long-gone.
Today, national political conventions are nothing more than scripted Hollywood-style events selling one-sided messages to a justifiably cynical electorate.
Nothing that occurred at either convention is likely to have much of an effect on the outcome of the 2012 presidential election. Managed and scripted infomercials or the grandeur of massive balloon drops should not be the basis for the election of an American president.
Mitt Romney and Barack Obama offer vastly different visions of our future. Surrogates -- even grandiose speeches by former presidents -- are no substitute for evaluating the record, promises and vision of those that seek to take the oath of office on Jan. 20.
The simple truth is that nothing newsworthy happened in Tampa at the GOP Convention or in Charlotte at the Democrat Convention. They did, however, spend a lot of our money for nothing more than the equivalent of "days-long" infomercials. They are great events for political junkies, the party faithful and the partisans but the modern political convention does little to add to the national political discourse.
The cost to the taxpayers this year for these underwritten parties exceeds $136 million. Taxpayers directly contribute $18,248,300 to each convention and an additional $50,000,000 for security. That figure does not include the cost for delegates (several thousand per delegate), corporate subsidies (in the tens of millions), lost productivity in the host city, or other costs.
If taxpayer funding of these events did not raise enough eyebrows, corporate contributions to these elaborate events and the role of lobbyists and political insiders should also be a source of concern. When a company receiving $45 billion dollars in the 2009 federal bailout contributes millions to the Democrat Convention despite announcing earlier this year that it was laying-off more than 30,000 workers, the indignation of taxpayers is justified. When the city of Tampa uses taxpayer funds for the GOP Convention to purchase $319,400 for 200 new police bicycles, and $516,000 for new cotton uniforms, the public is justly troubled.
While the costs are exploding for these super-sized parties filled with lobbyists and special interests, ordinary Americans are turning it off or changing the channel. No one but the staunchest of political observers is left in the viewing audience.
Television ratings tell us that most folks do, in fact, change the channel to anything but a national convention. On a nightly basis, little more than 21 million people, on average, have watched the 2012 conventions on the three broadcast and three cable news networks combined. The Giants-Cowboys game on a single channel had 22 million viewers. In a nation with more than 240 million people of voting age, when fewer watch the convention coverage than the opening game of the new NFL season, it is time to reconsider.
Nothing substantial happens at the modern political convention. Neither party would permit anything unscripted that could harm the sales pitch. Even the civics lesson that could accrue to young folks has been made more difficult. All the major speeches do not occur until late in the evening -- far past Isabella's, Audrey's and most kids' bedtimes (and mine).
Each party does have a critical function to nominate its candidate, tell us their platform, and allow its standard bearer for President to tell us his or her plan to serve the nation and maintain the Republic but the slickness of the modern political convention comes at a high price to taxpayers at a time when the nation is fiscally broke, families are working harder than ever, and hundreds of cable channels are competing for a limited pool of viewers.
It is time for reform. With a national debt in excess of $16 trillion, eliminating the taxpayer subsidy for national political conventions makes sense, is painless, and should have happened long ago.
Alternatively, at a minimum, both political parties should form a joint, non-partisan convention commission to select a single city to host both conventions in the same arena (one week apart), with the same staging, the same event facilities, and the same security procedures so as to minimize costs to us -- the taxpayers.
I miss the good ol' days of exciting national conventions, but they are not coming back anytime soon. Both political parties should begin the process of "austerity" by reigning in the excess of national conventions, a place that will not affect any ordinary taxpayer or the family struggling to pay the rent or put food on the table.
Stuart, of Charleston, is a former chairman of the West Virginia Republican Party and member of the Republican National Committee.
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