August 31, 2004
Adlai Lives! (Sort Of)
Posted by | 01:38 PM
Journalists come to conventions to see them live, but the fact is we wind up watching a lot of the action on TV. Each news organization only has so many floor passes and if you don't really need to be in the Garden, you retreat to the nearest tube. Besides, that's the show that matters most.
Surfing between speeches last night, I kept pausing on the historic convention speeches that are airing all week on C-SPAN2. They're amazing archaeological specimens, and worth seeking out (tonight's era is 1968-1980). I don't think I'd ever heard Adlai Stevenson's voice before. There's one guy who wouldn't have gone very far in today's sexed-up media world (GOP activist Bo Derek was being interviewed over on MSNBC).
Those old conventions have such a gray, stripped-down look: No musical acts, no giant screen behind the podium, and the speeches all seem so formal and stiff. This was "oratory," I guess. Going from bland, chalky Ike to the emotive, gesticulating Giuliani, it's hard to believe they're separated by just fifty years. Feels like thousands.
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Want to imagine some spice being added to any convention 1956 to 1976? One word, my friends, "Elvis."
The 1972 Republican Convention would have been most appropriate. The President and The King had met just a couple years earlier in a private meeting at the Oval Office. Elvis had offered his services as a "Federal Agent At Large," which had been politely declined. (www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/when_nixon_met_elvis)
However, the meeting was cordial, and Elvis could have taken a break from his gig at the Vegas Hilton to fly down to Miami Beach in August.
The timing could not have been better. Priscilla had just filed for divorce, and the single "Burning Love" was just hitting the charts. Elvis was on the market, both personally and professionally.
Meanwhile, Nixon was reaching out to the youth vote: lowering the voting age to 18, and moving towards a volunteer army.
Finally, it would have been another priceless televised moment in conjunction with the hug from Sammy Davis Junior (www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5464091/).
