Over the past fifty years, we have seen a massive change in how political conventions are structured.  A large part of the change is the result of the ever-changing rules for delegate selection.  If you look back at, for example 1976, a large number of delegates came from states that did not have binding preference votes.  And, even in the states with binding preference votes, uncommitted still got a decent number of votes.

While by the time of the conventions, the party had generally reached a consensus about the nominee. the structure of these conventions mostly tracked the fact that the convention would decide the presidential nominee.   As such, each of the four days was ultimately about party business.  Monday was about organizing the convention.  The main business was the credentials and rules reports that, upon adoption, would allow the convention to get its business started.  The highlight of the evening was the keynote speech that set forth the party’s view of the nation and its issues.  Tuesday was about the party platform.  Typically, that evening would see a series of speeches from party leaders about the key “planks” of the platform.  Wednesday was about picking the party’s presidential nominee — nomination speeches and the roll call.  Finally, on Thursday, the party would pick the vice-presidential nominee (again nomination speeches and the roll call) followed by acceptance speeches from the vice-presidential and presidential nominee.

The fact that the nominee is now determined entirely by the result of the primaries has changed the structure.  Today, rather than party business defining each night, party’s tend to have “themes” for each night.  With platform fights all but a thing of the past, we have moved the presidential nomination to Tuesday night and the Vice-Presidential nomination to Wednesday night so that we can have the VP nominee accept on Wednesday night.   (One benefit of this change is the end of the risk that the process of choosing the VP could bump the Presidential candidate out of prime time on Thursday). Continue Reading...