Which American political party was the first to hold a national presidential nominating convention, complete with platform? If you guessed the Anti-Mason Party, you win the cigar. The Anti-Masons came together in a Baltimore saloon on September 26, 1831, to nominate William Wirt to carry their banner in the next year’s election. His competition would be the incumbent, Andrew Jackson (Democrat) and Henry Clay (National Republicans). He would win one state, Vermont, which would give him its 7 electoral votes to Jackson’s 219 and Clay’s 49.
Wirt had been a distinguished and productive attorney general under presidents Monroe and J.Q. Adams and was only with reluctance drawn into the peculiar politics of the Anti-Masons, many of whom were more anti-Jackson than anything else. Wirt would die in 1834, and the party would soon follow him into oblivion. (And if you think “Anti-Mason” is a strange name for a political party, consider the Locofocos.)
Those of us who grew up watching the drama – some of it certainly forced or invented, but not all of it – of the great conventions must surely miss it. (I recall being woken by my father to watch Dwight Eisenhower accept the Republican nomination in 1952.) The organization of political conventions and the management of their business have always been open to suspicion of manipulation, of course, never more than in 1920, when the Republicans met in Chicago. They quickly deadlocked, split between Gen. Leonard Wood and Gov. Frank O. Lowden. Adding a compromise candidate, Sen. Warren G. Harding, failed at first to produce any effect. But Harding’s campaign manager, Harry M. Daugherty, had already made his prediction:
The convention will be deadlocked, and after the other candidates have gone their limit, some twelve or fifteen men, worn out and bleary-eyed for lack of sleep, will sit down, about two o’clock in the morning, around a table in a smoke-filled room in some hotel, and decide the nomination. When that time comes, Harding will be selected.
The prediction added a vivid word to the American political lexicon because it was uncannily accurate. On the night of June 11-12, a group of party elders gathered in “a smoke-filled room” in the Blackstone Hotel and made the deal that brought Harding the nomination on the tenth ballot. “We drew to a pair of deuces and filled,” Harding told reporters.
One of the stellar years for the convention form was 1924. The Democrats met in New York City, where favorite son Gov. Alfred E. Smith was thought to have the edge in the contest against William G. McAdoo. But Smith was a Catholic, a group that had inherited some of the nativist animus once aimed at Freemasons. Smith and McAdoo battled it out for 16 days until the exhausted convention nominated John W. Davis of West Virginia on the 103rd ballot. The catchphrase of the day was the announcement that commenced every one of those 103 ballots: “Alabama casts 24 votes for Oscar W. Underwood.”
Over on the Republican side, Calvin Coolidge was easily renominated, but a fight developed over the second spot on the ticket. As the New York Times reported, “Some of the struggling was done by gentlemen who wanted to be Vice President and much more of it was done by gentlemen who would not be Vice President under any circumstances…”. Gen. Charles G. Dawes emerged as the nominee. The Republican convention of that year was the first to be broadcast by radio.
The 1952 Republican convention was the first to be televised nationally, and the coverage reportedly included a fistfight between supporters of Eisenhower and Robert A. Taft. (Dad didn’t wake me for that.) The years to come were those in which we learned to savor the various ways in which some local nabob out on the floor could entone the words “Mr. Chairman; Mr. Chairman…” and to enjoy the “spontaneous” demonstrations in the aisles. This brief golden age of continuous televised coverage came to an abrupt end in Chicago in 1968, when the Democratic convention provided an overload of words and phrases and, above all, images that haunt the political process even yet.
The political convention in this age of multiplying and jockeying-for-calendar-position state primaries and caucuses is all show, choreographed much as the Academy Award show is and given less air time. A pity, I think.
译文:
政治性会议，失落的艺术
你知道在美国是哪个政党开创了通过全国代表大会提名总统候选人并提出施政纲领之先河吗？如果你回答是反共济党的话，那么恭喜你，你答对了。1831年 9月26日反共济党在巴尔的摩的一家沙龙聚会,提名威廉·沃特为次年大选的总统候选人。而他的竞争对手将是现任总统、来自民主党的安德鲁·杰克逊和共和党的亨利·克莱。最终，在1832年，沃特仅仅在佛蒙特洲获胜，而他总计所获得的７张投票也恰恰全部来自于这个洲。这个成绩比起杰克逊的219张和克莱的49张，实在是相形见绌。
在约翰·昆西·亚当斯时期以及詹姆斯·门罗时期，沃特是一位卓有建树的司法部长，也是唯一一位勉勉强强被拉入到反共济党的政治活动中的人，而该党的其他成员则全都是一些狂热的反共济主义者。1834，沃特去世，之后不久反共济党也随之销声匿迹。【如果你觉得作为一个政党，"反共济党"这个名称实在是很奇怪的话，那么你不妨想想"磨擦火柴党"（即"平等权利党"，由在美国1837年经济危机中失业的大批工人组成，并成立了美国历史上第一个工会组织），就见惯不怪了。】
在这一出出跌宕起伏的政党会议大剧中，有一部分-也仅仅只是这部分-确实推动了历史的发展，而我们之中那些看着这一出出戏剧长大的人也都确切无疑的会怀念这些戏剧。（直到今天我仍会常常回想起1952年的某一天被父亲从床上叫起去看艾森豪威尔接受共和党提名的情景）至于这些政治会议的组织工作和具体事务的管理方面，则一直以来都是饱受猜疑的，而其中质疑声最多的则是1920年共和党在芝加哥召开的一次会议。在那次会议中，共和党人分裂成了两个阵营，其中一派支持美军参谋部长官伦纳德·伍德将军，而另一派伊利诺宜斯州州长佛兰克·劳敦，这使得会议陷入僵局。后来两派虽然通过折中方案产生了一名新候选人--国会参议员沃伦·哈定，但在一开始却并没有发挥任何效用。不过哈定的竞选策划人哈里·麦克斯韦·道格尔迪却已经生动地描绘出了未来的图景：
会议陷入了僵局，而其他候选人也都已经达到了他们的极限，在某家旅馆“雪茄烟雾缭绕的小房间”（指专门供政客们进行密谈的小房间，直到今天还常常被用作"黑箱操作"的代名词）里，十几个因缺乏睡眠而感到疲劳不堪、目光迷糊的政客在凌晨二点左右围坐在桌旁，最终决定了提名人选，而这个人就是哈定。
这则预言为美国的政治生活添上了生动的一笔，因为它是如此令人惊异的准确。在六月11号- 12号晚上，一群资深党员聚集在黑石宾馆"雪茄烟雾缭绕的房间"里完成了这次交易，哈定最终在第十次投票中被提名为总统候选人。“我们打成了平手。” 事后，哈定这样告诉记者。
而对此类会议的形式产生显著影响的一年是1924年。在那一年，民主党人士齐聚纽约。在那里，受拥戴的当地侯选人、纽约市市长阿尔弗雷德·史密斯被认为是另一政府官员威廉·麦卡杜的有力竞争对手。然而，史密斯是一个天主教徒，而天主教徒或多或少继承了一些曾经是针对互济会会员的本土主义敌对意识。史密斯和麦卡杜的竞争持续了整整16天，直到筋疲力尽的会议各方最终在第103次投票中提名约翰戴维斯为西弗吉尼亚州的候选人。而当时促成了这103次反复投票的标语则是：“亚拉巴马州投了24张赞成票给奥斯卡·安德伍德。”
在共和党方面，凯文·柯立芝轻易的获得了再次提名，但是在确定副总统候选人人选时却发生了激烈的争执。正如《纽约时报》所说：“一部分争斗是由想成为副总统的人挑起的，而更多的则是由那些无论如何也不可能成为副总统的人所挑起。”最终，查尔斯·道斯获得了该项提名。那一年的共和党大会也是美国历史上第一次通过广播公开播出的会议。
而1952年的共和党大会则开创了通过电视全国播放的先河，据说那次新闻报道中还包括了一场发生在艾森豪威尔支持者和罗伯特·塔夫脱支持者之间的争斗。（那一次，父亲没有叫醒我。）在那之后的一段岁月中，我们学会了品评那些五花八门的可以使地方名士自称为“主席先生”、“议长先生”…的种种方式，并且学会了欣赏政治长廊中一件件"天然的"陈列品。然而，这个可以用电视连续进行新闻报道的短暂的黄金年代在1968年的芝加哥陡然终结。那一年的民主党大会上，发布了巨量政治花招中常常用到的词汇和短语，尤其是图片。
在这个混乱、充满欺骗和黑箱操作的年代，政治会议就是一场演出，一场如同奥斯卡颁奖典礼般的演出，只是比后者少了很多播出时间。我想，这真是一个遗憾。