Saturday Morning News

Democratic Convention Debate Transitions Over Time

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CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the Democratic convention dates back to the early 1800s and since then, as CNN's Bruce Morton tells us, the political landscape has transitioned from a time of slavery and world wars to anti-war protests and party showcasing.

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BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Democratic conventions started in 1832. The first six were in Baltimore central, but still not easy.

In 1835, Andrew Jackson called it a year early to make sure his vice president, Martin Van Buren, got nominated. In 1835, 110 delegates from Maryland shared 10 votes. The one delegate from Tennessee who made it had 15.

Slavery was a constant thorn. 1840, Congress has no power to interfere. 1848, it was up to the inhabitants of the territories, the white ones, of course. 1860, the Supreme Court should decide. That convention started in Charleston, South Carolina, moved to Baltimore after delegates from six southern states walked out and finally nominated Stephen Douglas, who lost to Lincoln anyway.

In 1864, they nominated George McClellan, a general Lincoln had fired. They lost often back then with nominees like Henry Seymour and Winfield Hancock and William Jennings Bryan, a famous orator who ran against the gold standard and lost three times, a record.

In 1912 in Baltimore and 1916 in Chicago, they nominated Woodrow Wilson, who led America through W.W.I but couldn't sell the League of Nations to the U.S. Senate. But in 1932 in Chicago they nominated perhaps their greatest president, Franklin Roosevelt, who would make history battling the Great Depression.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, 1932)

FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

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MORTON: He was the first to serve three terms, though others had thought about it. Didn't want to, he said, but would. And then a fourth term. He wasn't at that Chicago convention -- he headed for Pearl Harbor -- but spoke from a train.

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ROOSEVELT: What is the job before us in 1944? First, to win the war. To win it fast. To win it overwhelmingly.

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MORTON: He didn't talk about a running mate. The convention was split over sitting Vice President Henry Wallace, South Carolina's James Burne (ph), moderate Harry Truman. They settled on Truman, who four years later in Philadelphia saw his party battle not over slavery now, but segregation.

Hubert Humphrey, then mayor of Minneapolis, urged the delegates to move into the bright sunlight of civil rights.

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MAYOR HUBERT HUMPHREY (D), MINNEAPOLIS: The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadows of states rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.

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MORTON: Mississippi and Alabama delegates walked out and three days after the Democratic convention the Dixiecrats met and nominated Strom Thurmond for president. He won four states. Truman won reelection.

In 1960, the Democrats came here, to Los Angeles, for the first time, nominated John Kennedy on the first ballot and the conventions had changed. Los Angeles saw a big demonstration for Adlai Stevenson but the Kennedy organizer scoffed, "They have the demonstrators, we have the votes." A lot of the delegates had been chosen in primaries and that trend would continue.

In 1964, the murdered Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, was the nominee. Civil rights still roiled the convention. Two Mississippi delegations at the convention seated the all white (UNINTELLIGIBLE). By 1968, the country was torn by the Vietnam War, Robert Kennedy was dead, Johnson would not run again and the Democrat's Chicago convention turned bloody as Chicago police beat anti-war protesters.

Hubert Humphrey, Johnson's Vice President, the establishment choice, was nominated on the first ballot. All the dissent was in the streets outside.

By 1972, the Party was anti-war. The Miami Beach convention nominated George McGovern, who didn't get to make his acceptance speech until 3:00 A.M. and the country looked at its TV screens and saw the Democrats as radical, hippie, long-haired. They didn't like it. Again, there was a credentials fight. Humphrey wanted some of McGovern's delegates, but he lost. Again, primaries and caucuses, not the convention, picked the nominee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, 1976)

JIMMY CARTER, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My name is Jimmy Carter and I'm running for president.

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MORTON: In 1976, the delegates nominated Georgia's Jimmy Carter, no hippie. After the scandals of Watergate, he promised honesty and that was enough. In 1980, again in New York, the Democrats renominated Carter, weakened by Edward Kennedy's challenge in the primary, and the GOP with Ronald Reagan ruled.

William Clinton brought them back, nominated in New York in 1992, a centrist who co-opted Republican positions on everything from balanced budgets to welfare reform. It was the economy, stupid, and the good times haven't stopped. Clinton's conventions, like all recent ones, didn't pick the nominee. Primaries and caucuses did that. The convention is a chance to dominate the news for a week, spell out your vision and, if you want to wait that long, pick a running mate.

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LIN: My, how times have changed. CNN's Bruce Morton.

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