In a couple of weeks, we’ll all know for sure whether scattered predictions of a split Democratic National Convention are as far-fetched as I think they are. But as long as some activists still have their fingers crossed on the subject, it’s worth taking a highly condensed look at Democratic conventions – fractious and not - over the past 80 years.
Click on selected nominees’ names to read their acceptance speeches.
1924 New York City: John Davis wins on the
103rd ballot (leading foes – Smith, McAdoo) VP: Bryan (One key issue is raised by Oscar Underwood, who proposes an explicit condemnation of the Ku Klux Klan. The final vote is 546.15 for the Klan, 542.85 against it. The party is also riven between “wets” and “drys.”)
1928 Houston: Al Smith wins on the first ballot (leading foe: Cordell Hull) VP: Robinson
1932 Chicago:
Roosevelt wins on the fourth ballot (some sources mistakenly say the third) (leading foes: Smith, Garner) VP: Garner (FDR becomes the first nominee to make his acceptance speech at the convention.)
1936 Philadelphia:
Roosevelt by acclamation (leading foe: none) VP: Garner. (From 1832 to 1936, as a way to ensure Southerners wouldn’t get stuck with a nominee they didn’t like, the Democrats followed the “two-thirds rule”: nobody could be nominated without getting two-thirds of the delegates. That created seven multi-ballot conventions over the years. In 1912, U.S. House Speaker Champ Clark lost the nomination on the 46th ballot to Woodrow Wilson even though he got a majority of delegate votes from the 10th to the 16th ballots.)
1940 Chicago: Roosevelt by acclamation (leading foe: none) VP: Henry Wallace (Roosevelt had told top officials he wouldn’t run for a third term without Wallace on the ticket.)
1944 Chicago: Roosevelt by acclamation (leading foe: none) VP: Truman, on the second ballot. (Behind closed doors, Roosevelt and party leaders decided months in advance of the convention to get rid of the ultra-liberal and widely disliked Wallace as Veep because they feared that a presidential bid by him in 1948 would cost the party the election.)
1948 Philadelphia:
Truman wins on the first ballot (leading foe: Russell) VP: Barkely. (Hubert Humphrey offers a stunning (for the time)
pro-civil rights speech that pushes Democrats to support a stronger platform plank than Truman wants. Dixiecrats, led by Strom Thurmond, storm out of the convention over the civil rights plank and run their own campaign, winning 39 electoral votes. It’s the beginning of the end for the “Solid [Democratic] South.” Wallace Democrats flow to the Progressive Party and win zero electoral votes.)
1952 Chicago:
Stevenson wins on the third ballot (leading foe – Kefauver) VP: Sparkman.
1956 Chicago: Stevenson wins on the first ballot (leading foe Harriman) VP: Kefauver (who narrowly beats Kennedy for this spot on the second ballot. This is the last convention in which there is an open contest for the Vice Presidency.)
1960 Los Angeles:
Kennedy wins on the first ballot (leading foe – Johnson) VP: Johnson
1964 Atlantic City:
Johnson wins on the first ballot (leading foe - George Wallace)VP: Humphrey. (Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party members cause a ruckus over the fact that the Mississippi delegation is all white and Jim Crow laws work to exclude blacks from electoral politics. Attempts at compromise fail and the the MFDP members ultimately walk out.)
1968 Chicago:
Humphrey wins on the first ballot (leading foe - Gene McCarthy) VP: Muskie. (The DP abolishes the hated “unit rule,” which, since 1836, has allowed a state delegation’s majority to cast votes for ALL that state’s delegates to the convention. The antiwar faction fails (40% to 60%) to get its withdrawal plank into the party platform. Cops attack street protesters opposed to the party’s Vietnam stance. Meteor Blades, a McCarthy delegate, gets beaten up by Chicago’s Finest twice and arrested [and quickly released] five times in four days.)
1972 Miami Beach: McGovern wins on the first ballot (leading foes – Humphrey, Wallace) VP: Eagleton, then Shriver.(For a treat, check out John Ashbrook’s
announcement of his 1972 campaign against Richard Nixon.)
1976 New York City:
Carter on the first ballot (leading foes - Udall, Jackson) VP: Mondale.
1980 New York City:
Carter wins on the first ballot (leading foe – Kennedy) VP: Mondale.
1984 San Francisco:
Mondale on the first ballot (leading foe – Hart) VP:
Ferraro, the first female vice presidential nominee of a major party.
1988 Atlanta:
Dukakis wins on the first ballot (leading foes – Jackson, Gore) VP: Bentsen.
1992 New York City: Clinton wins on the first ballot (leading foes – Tsongas, Brown) VP: Gore.
1996 Chicago:
Clinton wins on first ballot (leading foe – none) (Chicago) VP: Gore.
2000 Los Angeles:
Gore wins on the first ballot (leading foe – Bradley) VP: Lieberman.
Take the poll.