Amidst all this blather about the Clintons being divisive and demanding time to speak at the Democratic Convention, Eric Boehlert reminds us that runners-up nearly always get the opportunity to speak at their party's convention, and that sometimes (gasp!) their names are even placed in nomination.
At the Democratic National Convention in 1992, Jerry Brown, who finished a very distant second to the party's nominee, had his name placed into nomination and addressed the assembled convention. After seconding his own nomination (true story), Brown delivered a fiery speech that thrilled his unruly supporters inside Madison Square Garden.[snip]
Four years earlier, the Democratic convention in Atlanta witnessed even more tumult from the second-place finisher when Jesse Jackson, furious at being passed over for the vice-presidential slot by the party's nominee, Michael Dukakis (who failed to call Jackson and tell him the VP news), threatened to withhold his delegates' support from the party's nominee.
From the lack of historical knowledge displayed by the political media, one would think its average age was 24 and its members all just graduated from third-tier J-schools.
As the headline of Boehlert's column says, "Hillary Clinton speaks at convention. The press concocts a story."
Posted by Linkmeister at August 26, 2008 08:45 AM | TrackBack