THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 14, 1996 TAG: 9608140361
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SERIES: Decision '96
SOURCE: BY GUY FRIDDELL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 71 lines
If you were the Republican Party chairman, wouldn't you wish to have the governor of California open the convention in San Diego, a customary role for the head of the host state?
Particularly for vote-rich California, which Democrat Bill Clinton already has visited 27 times this year.
The GOP hierarchy yanked the invitation it gave California Gov. Pete Wilson to welcome the troops.
They dissed him apparently because he wouldn't submit to their telling him what to say in advance.
The only politician who can get away with doing that is Colin Powell. He is bigger than the party. Bigger even than Pat Robertson or Ralph Reed.
In a news conference, convention chief Haley Barbour said that the speakers were assigned topics, to cover all the bases in an issue-oriented campaign. Gov. Wilson had chosen not to comply with the topic that had been chosen for him, Barbour said. In the case of Wilson - as well as that of Massachusetts Gov. William Weld - GOP leaders fear apparently that the two might mention abortion in their remarks.
The idea of telling governors what to say, and thereby choking off dissent, is execrable.
Why, if Barbour tried to tell Virginia's governor what to say, the people would be insulted. The governor of Virginia, in their eyes, holds the highest political office. That there hasn't been a violent reaction among Californians mystifies me. Maybe the benign climate lulls people's will to dissent.
Rather than submit to censorship, Pat Buchanan hired a hall in which to air his radical rhetoric. Agree with him or not, you are hearing something extraordinary and hang on every word.
The convention planners are feeding us videos of ordinary Joes and Josephines saying why they favor the Republicans. I can't imagine anything duller. You hear that incessantly on radio talk shows.
Their testimony here sounds like a commercial for a power mower or a vacuum cleaner.
``A consumer convention,'' Barbour calls it.
I can't abide it.
It has eliminated suspense and fluidity from national nominating conventions. In 1952, the Virginia delegation to Chicago's Democratic convention lacked a consensus on whom they should support for president. Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson came to the podium to welcome the convention. His first few words enthralled them. They were transfixed.
By the end of his message, many knew he was their candidate to oppose the popular Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower. It took several ballots and a moving speech by Virginia governor John S. Battle, but they nominated Adlai.
In the ensuing campaign, Stevenson chose at nearly every stop to talk about whatever was the most controversial issue. In Richmond he chose to talk about the necessity of integrating public schools to an audience that crammed the 5,000-seat Mosque auditorium.
Nobody, certainly not the likes of Haley Barbour, would have dared to try to change a word penned by Adlai Stevenson, who was nominated at an unscripted convention.
Another thing: Neither Adlai nor Ike ever stooped to personal attacks. It was all about issues, without negative campaigning.
Stevenson lost. Nobody could have overcome the charm of rosy-faced Ike's grin, but it was one of those elections in which many voters felt either candidate would have made a superb president.
Certainly, I did.
Not long out of the Army, I was drawn to Ike but voted at the last minute for Adlai.
In 1956, the two ran again, and I voted for Ike, who won again. But tucked away is an Adlai button.
Don't talk to me about scripted conventions.
KEYWORDS: REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION by CNB