[applause] ladies and gentlemen of the convention, proudly i place before you the name of jimmy carter as the nominee of the Democratic Party and the next president of the United States. [applause] election 1976, the Democratic National convention. Your host is political analyst Richard Scammon. Richard this is Richard Scammon in washington. With me are professor howard honeyman of Howard Howard university and mr. Stephen hess of the brookings institution. We want to discuss the Democratic Convention. We will do the Republican Convention at a later time when that meeting has been finished. But perhaps before we do either of the detailed discussions we conventions, we want to spend at least a few minutes talking about the basic purpose of an American National president ial nominating convention. One observer has said these conventions are real ideological struggles told as circuses. We know the main purpose is to nominate a candidate for president. But howard penniman, beyond that, how can we briefly describe the process of an American Convention . Howard the National Convention is the time of the nominating of the president and Vice President. It is also the one time the party has the national existence. It meets there with delegates from every state in the union, elected by various means, this time by the direct primary but sometimes by convention. It needs as a national partnership. The one time it really operates in the flesh. It nominates the candidate and writes a platform upon which the candidate will stand with such variations as the candidate themselves choose to put in it. It does a number of other things. It serves as a Meeting Place between of the leaders of the party, and a good deal of unity, as there was at this last convention of the Democratic Party, contrast to a couple of its predecessors. It does its job of unifying the party. Rallying as a kind of for the benefit of the faithful around the country. Stephen since we all watch it on television, the Democratic Convention starts monday night and runs through thursday night. We have four days where all television is turned to it, so he gives us american electorate and voters a chance to look in on this party or at least the large collection of leaders, and get a sense of what they are all about. By the speakers they put before us, they are symbolic. Do they put a black woman, do they put in italian, do they put somebody from the south before us . What are the issues that seem to excite them . In 1968 and 1972 there were many issues that excited them. This time it was very interesting how few of these issues. What happened to them . So we come out of it. Because of this intense exposure, with some sense of who these people are. We see interviews with the candidates and with their mothers and with their children and with their party leaders. It helps us make a decision. Friends i think are our overseas, we have to point out party is about the platform, dealing with Foreign Policy, one must treat this platform with a great deal of caution. It is basically designed to get you elected, not necessarily to be a house for the next four years. In most instances, all of us americans and our friends overseas would be better advised to listen to the candidate who is the one who interprets the platform and makes it real if he becomes president. Forget the never basic task. And the basic task of the party who will choose someone to run for president in november and if successful will form a new administration. Howard there is also the question of these exciting issues that he is talking about. When we have exciting issues in the party, we also have a divided party. The issues were not so exciting this time because the Democratic Party was not divided in the fashion that it has been. Richard it is interesting what you are saying. It is true it is true that , amongst democrats that i know, they would much rather have the quiet convention of 1976 than a controversial issue oriented debate of 1968 or 1972. They were dramatic there were , fights, there were roll calls, there were debates. Perhaps i would say yes. More people watched in those years. This time the allstar baseball game as a matter of fact was held right during this convention. A lot of people watched that. Lets watch some of the scenes from this past Democratic National convention. [gavel] it was 144 years ago. That members of the Democratic Party first met in convention to select a president ial candidate. Our meeting this week is a continuation of that tradition. But there is Something Different about tonight. Theres Something Special about tonight. What is different, what is special . I, Barbara Jordan, am a keynote speaker. [applause] when [applause] a lot of years have passed since 1832. And during that time, it would have been most unusual for any National Political party to ask a Barbara Jordan to deliver a keynote address. But tonight, here i am. And i feel [applause] i feel that notwithstanding the past that my presence here is one additional bit of evidence that the American Dream need not forever be deferred. [applause] we are in the tradition of america, a tradition of pioneering, of adventure of , optimism, confidence, a tradition of caring and sharing. That is the character of america, and that is the story of the Democratic Party. This party of ours has always believed no challenge is too great for the american nation. Therefore we must muster our strength, our courage, our imagination, and our great energy. We can become whatever we want to be. [applause] ladies and gentlemen of the convention, proudly i place before you the name of jimmy carter as the nominee of the Democratic Party and the next president of the United States. [applause] madam secretary, illinois is happy to give 164 votes for the next president , jimmy carter, two votes for brown, one for mccormick, one for udall, and one for wallace. [applause] kansas, the 34th state, is pleased to cast 34 votes, 32 for carter, two for udall. The kansan vote is 32 votes for governor carter, and two votes for senator udall. Maine. Madam secretary, the state of maine tests 15 votes for governor carter, five votes for udall. North dakota, the Geographic Center of the north american continent, the peace garden state, casts all of its 13 votes for governor jimmy carter. The north dakota votes 13 votes for jimmy carter. As chairperson of the ohio delegation, this nations largest delegation pledged to jimmy carter im proud and , honored to join with the congressman and his 21st district delegation to pass in the spirit of unity and love and votes. In november 132 [applause] i have two announcements to make. One is that i have decided to accept the nomination. [laughter] [applause] for president. The other one is that i have asked to serve as my running mate if the delegates will approve senator Walter Mondale from minnesota. [applause] happy and honored to nominate my dear and good friend, senator Walter Mondale, to be the democratic candidate and the next Vice President of the United States. [applause] mr. Carter delegates and friends, i am proud to accept your nomination as your candidate for Vice President of the United States. And i pledge to you tonight, and i pledge to all americans that i will do everything in my power to elect jimmy carter the next president of the United States. [applause] hours is the party of the man who was nominated by those and whoconventions, inspired and restored this nation in its darkest hours, franklin d. Roosevelt. [applause] fighting party of democrat who showed us that a common man could be an uncommon leader, harry s. Truman. [applause] ours is a party of a brave young president who called the young at heart regardless of age to seek a new frontier of national greatness, john f. Kennedy. [applause] and ours is also the party who of a great hearted texan who took office in a tragic hour and went on to do more than any other president did in this century to further the cause of human rights, Lyndon Johnson. [applause] and our party was built out of the sweatshops of the old lower east side, the dark mills of New Hampshire the blazing heart of , illinois, the coal mines of pennsylvania [applause] the hardscrabble of the southern coastal plains, and the unlimited frontiers of america. Is a party that welcomes generations of immigrants. The jews, the irish, the italians, the poles, all of the others. They thought the political battles that helped bring them into the american mainstream, and they have shaped the character of our party. That is our heritage. Our party has not been perfect. We have made mistakes, and we have paid for them. But ours is a tradition of leadership, and compassion, and progress. I have seen america. On the move again. United, a diverse and powerful nation. Entering our third century with pride and confidence. An america that lives up to the majesty of our constitution and a simple decency of our people. This is the america we will want. This is the america we will pass. Thank you very much. [applause] richard those were excerpts from the proceedings of the Democratic National convention. In this month in july, the convention which nominated jimmy carter and senator mondale for president and Vice President. What we want to do now is analyze what happened in that convention. Try and tell you something about what this means for the election , what this means for the years of a new administration if this comes to power. Howard penniman, what does jimmy carter really stand for in this election . Howard he stands for a number of things i think. Richard other than the decency and the rest that was described in his speech. Howard he stands for unity within the Democratic Party. He is somewhere in the center of that party, a little bit maybe to the left of center. He stands for the things that can unify a once badly divided party. He stands for i think racial improvement in racial conditions, greater equality. From minority groups. For minority groups. At a time when the north and south are now much closer together than they have been in the last 30 years, on precisely this issue began dividing them in 1948. He stands for, on the economic side, for a good deal of relatively limited reform. Reform which is going to increase in some parts the expenditures of the National Government in the welfare field , in aid to the cities, in National Health programs, and expenditure of funds from the aid to the unemployed. Perhaps to decrease the number of unemployed. These kinds of things which are slightly to the left of center of the Democratic Party but not to the left of the delegations. Stephen he certainly stands for managing government. This is fairly unique among recent president s. All, if her, after becomes president , will be the first former governor, a state chief executive to be president since Franklin Roosevelt. Our president s have tended to come out of the legislature. Jimmy carter seems to be very interested in how government runs, the organization of it. He has made a very big issue of government reorganization. It is clear that he is a very serious planner. The fact that a candidate who was virtually unknown at the beginning of the year, has been running for two years and has , ands we know, a game plan actual scenario or outline of how he would get from an unknown to capture the democratic nomination. If there should be a carter presidency, i think it would be a very much more managerial presidency than we have known in the recent past. Howard managing the American Government is a massive task. Changing it greatly may be something we will not see. Much is verying difficult in any massive organization, and surely the United States government is a massive organization. Richard the thing that has impressed me most about this Democratic Convention and the primaries that preceded it was that this was such a small swing away from the perceived leftwing convention of 1972 that nominated mr. Mcgovern. A swing back towards the center. Maybe a little left of center, because the whole party is left of center the center of the , Democratic Party. The defeat of the retreating right and the diminished left. The real core of the party as represented by carter is a party of the liberal center, left of center, whatever you wish to call it. But it is a very strong move away from the Mcgovern Campaign just as the republicans in 1968 moved far away from the campaign of 1964. Part of this may be a matter of principle. Part of it may be expediency in the sense that when you get too far off the center of american politics, you lose your shirt. It looks likely assuming mr. Ford has been nominated by the republicans, that this election of 1976 may be slightly left of Center Versus slightly right of center. Two basic moderates. In the mainstream of american thought. Certainly we saw in the Democratic Convention a party that wanted to win. We expect the will to win is what holds politicians together. It has been absent in the recent past with the Democratic Party who have been out of office for eight years. Now they have come together and nominated a southerner, which is very unique in itself. The south was a major component of the coalition that elected Franklin Roosevelt and kept the democrats in office for 20 years. In recent years the more conservative section of the country has been driving into a republican camp. Bringing in the president ial nominee as a southerner is a major step that kept them in the 1930s and 1940s. Stephen the reason this could happen, the issues that divided the democrats and republicans were the issues of civil rights and the issues of vietnam war. Both of these are gone, the vietnam war because it is completed. But the civil rights one is at least minimized because of the tremendous progress in the United States. Change both in the south and the north, in the degree of racial equality that has come about over the last 15 years. Or thereabouts. And that problem is not at such an exacerbated level that a party gets fully divided as the Democratic Party once was over this issue. Richard let me ask those of you, howard and steve, do you agree we have been talking about moderation in politics, moving towards the center would you agree that in Foreign Policy, which i know is a major concern of many of our friends overseas, that in Foreign Policy, despite the rhetoric of many a speaker on the podium in this last convention, despite the rhetoric, that basically a Carter Administration would maintain a Foreign Policy not significantly different, not markedly right or left from the president ford Foreign Policy, would you agree with this as a general premise . Stephen i think all of our clues to this point point in that direction. In jimmy carters acceptance speech, there was very little emphasis on Foreign Policy. He, as i said before, was a state governor. He was not experienced on the scene. We had little to go on in terms of his personal record. In terms of the advisors he seems to be turning to, they are not very different in kind than the advisors john kennedy and Lyndon Johnson had when they were president s. The Party Platform is certainly a continuation in my judgment of the direction of Foreign Policy that we have had for the last eight years. So i think all of the clues point at least in the direction. Howard the speeches of course gave much less emphasis. Any time, if you are not in a crisis in the United States in Foreign Policy you will not , emphasize that. The votes come from people who are primarily interested in domestic. The platform gives an enormous amount of space to Foreign Policy. As steve has been saying, it is with some changes in rhetoric and some emphasis here or there. But clearly the expectation must be that it will continue basically the policy which has been guiding the United States i would say since the truman period. Richard and if we look upon domestic policy as being the real base for american politics, which i agree entirely it is, then we are faced with this problem two problems. Can jimmy carter maintain this veryciliation of many divergent elements in the party . The gaps in the Democratic Party are still there. Can he maintain this reconciliation and unity until november . If he wins, how long after november before those gaps open up again . Howard . Howard i would say he could probably maintain the better part of it through november. It gets more difficult when you begin writing legislation next january and february. Again, i would suppose although that if there is a large democratic majority, suppose for a moment he is elected, and there is a democratic majority in congress he should be able to , get the support of congress on virtually any issue given he will not press anything out at extraneous positions. They should maintain that unity well into the summer or fall. May be the first full year of his presidency, and there will be then some of those Economic Reforms that i talked about earlier. Richard would you agree in this case, steve, that if these economic changes, which many republicans say will result in heavy inflation, do result in that kind of inflation would you , feel that year that honeymoon , year might be shortened up . If he were elected president . Stephen it will be a very strange future for jimmy carter. I think in terms of having a president and a congress in the same party, which we have not had, and we should not presuppose a certain harming i , tend to think that is a charade. Because of the very diversity of both the Democratic Party and the interests of congress. You always give a new man a break. Should there be a jimmy carter presidency and a continuation of the democratic congress, we could see over time, a very interesting development, in hash a democratic president control of a democratic congress. He has been discussing with me in washington, the Democratic Convention. Be discussing the work of the Republican Convention as well. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020]
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