National Political Conventions Are Here

As I've stated elsewhere, I'm a real political junkie. I am really interested in politics and political strategies. I have strong feelings about issues but love to watch and learn from any political party or entity.  From the time I was just a youngster I have stayed up and watched political conventions of the two major parties in this country. Sometimes that has meant little sleep for sustained periods.

This year is no different, although the Republican Convention in Tampa has already had delays and will be shortened due to Tropical Storm Isaac and now people are even talking about moving to one day conventions in the long term. It's been many years since real candidate decisions have been made at national conventions. Everyone has known for months that Mitt Romney would be the Republican nominee. We all also knew that President Obama would be the Democratic nominee. But there are new things that can happen at conventions. For one thing people have a chance to learn more about candidates. In addition, delegates and surrogates can cause or get into trouble and what party they belong to makes no difference.

So this week all attention is on the Republicans and Mitt Romney. Next week it will be the Democrats and President Obama. So I expect to be spending a lot of time watching all of the proceedings on tv and getting a little less sleep.

I was listening to some commentary on the radio yesterday that reminded me of a convention from the past. In 1964, Barry Goldwater was nominated as the Republican candidate for President. It's really interesting that George Romney, Mitt Romney's father, was the spokesperson for the moderate wing of the Republican party that year. He was very concerned about the direction of the party and its move toward the right. He spoke out strongly and fought for a plank in the party platform that year to support civil rights legislation. He lost that battle. He fought hard against what he considered to be Goldwater's extremism. I learned through the commentary yesterday that Mitt Romney attended that convention as a 17 year old and watched his father try to stand for moderation in the party. The senior Romney wrote Goldwater after the convention pointing out why the party needed to be more inclusive rather then moving in one direction or the other.

Here we are in 2012 with Mitt Romney seeming to move further and further to the right of center and it makes one wonder if he thinks about that convention in 1964 and what his father was trying to accomplish. I guess we'll see.