Coop Scoop Aug 18: The Too Conventional Convention Edition

The Too Conventional Convention Edition

August 18, 2020
Issue #30

I write this on Tuesday morning after sitting through the first night of the virtual, or is it faux, Democratic Convention.

The greatest problem with it was not necessarily that there were too many Republicans in the lineup, rather there were too many Democrats. Specifically, an erratic jumble of Democratic politicians yapping away and praising the person of Joe Biden as if he were the embodiment of Jesus rather than a coherent presentation of just exactly WHY voters should go Democratic and exactly WHAT that would mean.

All in all, this TV production revealed the utter lack of imagination that hobbles the still mostly ossified Democratic Party. I mean, my God, what an unbelievable once in a lifetime opportunity they were gifted and they barely even tore open the wrapping.

Think about it. They are currently facing the very worst, most unpopular, most unhinged, most authoritarian president in US history who is doing everything he can to ball up the election that he knows damn well he will probably lose. We still have a pile of 175,000 American dead bodies and just as many to come in the next handful of months and the US government has withdrawn in defeat. Some 50 million workers have filed for unemployment in the last three months and rent strikes and mortgage defaults are on the rise while food banks are over-run. Young protesters are still in the street and still getting faced down by squads of militarized robocops. And a full 80% of Americans say the country is on the wrong track.

Two questions, then. One: Do you think we are in the midst of a grave and deathly urgent national crisis? Two: did you feel any commensurate urgency during most of the show last night? If you did, please PM me with what strain you are smoking.

The Democrats had this amazing opportunity to occupy eight hours this week of prime time television across almost every network. Moreover, they were not constrained by the protocols and the endlessly boring business of a physical convention. They had all the money in the world precisely because they did not have to finance a week long party for 5,000 drunken delegates dressed as Donkeys or covered in sequined American and Rainbow flags.

In short, they COULD HAVE produced whatever the hell they wanted to with no impediments. That’s a dream come true for any campaign. So what did they wind up doing?

They extracted the very worst parts of a “normal convention” and imported them into a Zoom broadcast interspersed with some pretty good videos and music (except for the Young Joni Mitchell impersonator from Maine who I was hoping would slip off the cliff she was strumming on).

The end result was a disjointed, non-linear, sometimes indecipherable mish mosh of short takes and short speeches that created a weird simultaneous sensation of whiplash and stultification. That is, until the last half hour when Bernie Sanders gave a concrete, precise and much-needed rundown of the actual POLICIES that he claims a Biden administration supports: a $15 minimum wage, a push for greater union density, 12 weeks of paid family leave, universally funded pre-school, an expansion of health care, cutting cost of drugs, lowering the age of medicare and so on. In other words, Sanders was really the first speaker to give voters some material reasons to vote for Biden and the Democrats.

Sanders also pounded home the simple truth that it is no less than our democracy that is at stake in this election and that fighting over political purity 75 days out from the most determinative election in our lives was not the thing to do.

He was followed up by the powerhouse speech of America’s most popular woman, Michelle Obama. She delivered a highly emotional and moving 20 minute plea to set America straight again and did not bother much with policy per se. She didn’t need to get into the weeds as she capped the evening with a proper tone of urgency and gravitas. That is, at least for the audience who had not earlier tuned out during the first 90 minutes that I characterized last night as similar to the 2:00 am segment of a Jerry Lewis Telethon.

My beef isn’t with just the cameos given Republican zillionaire Meg Whitman (that nobody remembers or cares about), or about Republican Christie Todd Whitman who hit her political peak 15 years ago, or by the befuddling Republican John Kasich who delivered his talk from a dirt road somewhere in Ohio.

Nor did we need to hear anything at all from all those former Democratic candidates that had already been soundly rejected by huge majorities of Democrats like the unbearable Amy Klobuchar or even the endearing Andrew Yang. And Tom Steyer? What’s that about? Just who did anybody think that this motley crew would convince of anything except to maybe switch channels to the NBA playoffs?

If you ever do radio, or TV for that matter, you are taught there are two broad categories of content. Programmer-focused or audience-focused.

That first category is best exhibited by a plethora of current podcasts, mostly by millennials, who think it is just great to sit around a mic and talk to each other instead of talking TO the audience, It feels great if you are one of those who has the mic. It’s fucking boring as hell if you try to listen.

Audience focused content is exactly that. It connects to and engages the audience because you are talking directly to them. Exhibit A in this category, I am sorry to say, is Rush Limbaugh. Yes, he’s a pig. His content is horrifying. But his format and delivery are perfect. Tune in if you dare and you will feel like he’s talking only to YOU.

Way too much of the Democratic Convention was the former model. The producers decided that instead of kicking the presentation off with a jarring, emotional, ten minute video collage of Trump’s crimes and WHY this election matters so much, it began with Eva Longoria (one of our great and wise political leaders) introducing a bunch of cheese-cloth Reaganesque video paeans to Middle Americana topped off by a super-sized Pledge of Allegiance (and the Los Angeles Dodgers take the field!).

Much of the rest of the show – with the exception of Sanders and Obama and the Arizona girl who lost her dad and the very good Amtrak video—was nothing but pandering to the party nomenklatura making sure that every Democratic pol got their three minutes under the lights so everybody INSIDE the party would be happy. And so short on solutions. Just about every speaker ritually denounced “systemic racism” but nobody mentioned exactly what system they were referring to and what they planned to change about it..

OK, Ok. Easy to criticize Marc. So just exactly what would YOU have done?

The easiest thing to do would probably have been to bring in Steve Schmidt and Rick Wilson from the Lincoln Project and given them free hand to produce the 8 hours. Yes, they are ex-Republicans but they are far and away the MVP’s this year in producing the very best, the most effective, the sharpest, and the most pungent media content of this cycle. I friggin’ guarantee you they would have not only axed Amy and Tom and Meg and Christie, they also would have produced some crippling gut punches to the guy who now says he wants a third term.

This, of course, would never happen… i.e. that the Democrats would admit that a knot of former Republicans are better media maestros than they are.

My fallback and much more doable proposition: First, erase all videotapes of prior conventions and wipe them from your memory. Second. Take the four nights awarded you for free and dedicate each night to one topic. Take you pick among a target-rich environment. One night on why this election is of such importance and why you must vote. Another night on the pandemic. Another on the econ crisis. And another on racial justice. Take each night and look at it as a slot for a sort of documentary. No celebrities, please. And as few politicians as possible but absolutely no speeches… or maybe one by someone with the impact of Michelle. Lots and lots of ordinary people, filmed in their workplace or home, highlighting the theme of the night. Perhaps we employ a low key but earnest and intelligent pol as our guide/reporter of the night.

Most importantly of all, each night, make sure that front and center are the concrete policy solutions that the Democrats are offering to the crisis being highlighted that night.

In sum, two hours a night of highly produced, professional, hard-hitting, urgent content about the dangers we face and then a goddamn serious explanation of how the Democrats – notice I said Democrats and not just Joe Biden – intend to SOLVE these issues. Give the audience an overdose of what the Democrats actually intend to do, instead of the endless bromides spewed out about the wonders of democracy, freedom, love and the superpowers of Joey B.

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