Mark Davis: Convention coronation for Harris will be enthusiastic but empty | Opinion

You might be surprised to learn that Republicans have held their presidential nominating convention in Chicago more often than Democrats have. The first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, accepted his nomination in a hastily built hall known as the Wigwam in 1860.

Both parties frequently launched presidential campaigns from the city from Lincoln’s time all the way to the era of Franklin Roosevelt, when both he and Herbert Hoover were nominated there in 1932. Franklin D. Roosevelt and his last opponent, Thomas Dewey, held their events in Chicago in 1944.

The last Republican to hear the cheers of adoring delegates in Chicago was Richard Nixon in 1960. Eight years later, Democrats returned to Chicago to oppose the resurgent Nixon, but protesters’ violent opposition to the Vietnam War became the enduring imagery of that week in August.

I was 10 years old. I remember asking my parents about the riots that all but upstaged the contested nomination of Hubert Humphrey. They explained what my pre-adolescent brain had grasped from a rudimentary kid’s-eye-view of the news: The times were fractious, a lot of people were upset, and a national political gathering was a prime place for protesters to get national attention.

Now, 56 years later, as the party gathers again in Chicago, there are questions about the level of disorder we might see as the brand of pro-Palestinian discord that disrupted college campuses and other environments this year descends on what Democrats would like to view as a happy, unified celebration of Kamala Harris.

Whatever disturbances occur outside the United Center next week, unlike 1968, the party business inside the hall will be conflict-free. Humphrey faced challenges from Sens. Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern, amid frenzied battles over which delegates would be seated to make their voices heard. Harris will be the uncontested choice of delegates who have found a way to conjure enthusiasm even though the selection process has been hijacked and wrested from the control of voters.

Joe Biden allowed millions of Democrats to vote for him in primaries largely cleared of opponents by heavy-handed party bosses. With Harris’ help, he tried to convince the nation that his obvious cognitive decline was nothing to worry about for the remaining months of the campaign and even for an entire second term stretching into 2029. They both condemned anyone daring to believe evidence available to anyone with eyes.

After the debate with Donald Trump, when that scam was no longer sustainable, the wheels began to turn for Biden to be muscled out of the race. Since neither time nor modern Democratic identity politics would allow the consideration of anyone beyond Harris, here we are. A woman who has received no votes (and did not receive many more when she ran for the office in 2019) will be anointed by a party that has managed to suppress any normal bewilderment to embrace her as the bearer of one lofty and powerful characteristic — she is the only person who can stop Trump’s return to the White House.

That’s a powerful motivator for Democratic voters. It will have to be, because even the most skilled speechwriters will have a tough time crafting a Thursday night acceptance address in which Harris can objectively argue for positive policies on the economy, the border and crime.

She has promised to do various things to improve the economy once installed in office, ignoring the fact that she has been vice president for three and a half years. She will try to put on a mantle of toughness on crime, especially with repeated juxtapositions of her California “prosecutor” title contrasted with Trump’s current convicted felon status. But as any visit to San Francisco or Los Angeles will reveal, Harris’ crimefighting enthusiasm has not found success in places where people actually live. And I don’t envision any video tributes to her record as border czar.

That’s why this convention will be limited in its capacity to fill the normal function of a weeklong TV commercial sharing reasons why the nominee is superb. Into that void, they will unload repeated references as to why Trump is a democracy-devouring Hitler.

And in that hall, it will work. On most TV networks, it will earn enthusiastic praise. But across America, as the honeymoon of August yields to the hard realities of the fall and a debate with Trump three weeks away, the reception may not be as flattering.

Mark Davis hosts a morning radio show in Dallas-Fort Worth on 660-AM and at 660amtheanswer.com. Follow him on X: @markdavis .

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