Ten unforgettable convention gaffes
As Republican and Democratic delegates prepare for the confetti and balloons of nomination night, party planners are minding the mistakes – and stealing the successes – of conventions past.
Before the television era, party conventions were news-making events. Delegates acted like day traders, furiously swapping favors, planks, and votes to secure a platform and a nominee. Dozens of ballots were usually required to sift the field of nominees. Traditionally, the party's eventual pick did not even attend the convention, preferring to keep above the unseemly fray.
But as broadcast news networks took on a larger presence – and created a bigger impact – conventions steadily became scripted affairs. With millions of TV viewers watching gavel-to-gavel coverage, party bosses eliminated the scrum of nominee-picking.
By the 1970s, most convention suspense had been sapped, and networks began to cut back their coverage. Still, nominees get free prime-time television coverage during the conventions and typically enjoy a significant bounce in the polls. Conventions remain high-stakes, high-risk proving grounds for public image-making. The Monitor talked to political historians to round up some of the most famous gaffes and highlights in political-convention history.

— by Josh Burek

 ( Scroll for convention gaffes )

AP/File
William Jennings Bryan (left, at rostrum) pleads vainly for silence as delegates hurl insults over his request that the Ku Klux Klan not be named in the party's platform at the Democratic National Convention.
Ballot marathon & KKK debate dooms party
In a marathon of nominee-wrangling, Democratic delegates used over 100 ballots at their 1924 convention in New York before finally settling on John Davis, who eventually lost to Republican Calvin Coolidge. What's worse, the party became bitterly divided over planks related to the Ku Klux Klan and Prohibition. "It doesn't get much dirtier than the [Democrats] in 1924," says Jerald Podair, who teaches modern US political history at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisc.

UPI/File
Margaret, Bess, and President Harry Truman wave from the rear platform of a train in Washington as they leave for the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia.
When the doves fly ... and die
Badly trailing challenger Thomas Dewey in polls, Harry Truman needed a lift. Convention planners tried to lift morale at the 1948 Philadelphia convention by releasing doves into the hall. The symbolism backfired. Some doves died in the sweltering heat. Others dive-bombed bemused delegates. Unfazed, Truman lambasted the "do-nothing" Congress and began his successful comeback reelection bid.

AP/File
Fanny Lou Hamer, a leader of the Freedom Democratic party, urges accreditation for the group as Mississippi's delegation to the convention.
Racial tensions embarrass LBJ
The segregated Mississippi state delegation caused major public-relations problems for Lyndon Johnson and the Democratic Party during their convention in Atlantic City. Because they were refused the right to be seated on the convention floor, the state's black delegation formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. An impassioned representative, Fannie Lou Hamer, gave televised testimony about the voting difficulties blacks faced. President Johnson hastily called a press conference to distract network coverage, but her plea still made the evening news, underscoring the racial tensions within the Democratic Party.

AP/File
Sen. Barry Goldwater accepts the Republican presidential nomination in San Francisco.
Goldwater's bravado backfires
Barry Goldwater helped plant the seeds for the Reagan revolution. In 1964, however, his unapologetically conservative acceptance speech in San Francisco was ahead of its time. Goldwater's remarks scared voters, and Lyndon Johnson won in a landslide. His most famous line – "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue" – later became a motto of the libertarian movement. "The Barry Goldwater speech in 1964 clearly backfired," says Allan M. Winkler, an expert on 20th-century American history at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Goldwater's supporters confirmed the stereotype. When liberal rival Nelson Rockefeller stood to deliver a concession speech, Goldwater supporters heckled him. It was an act of "monumental stupidity," says Podair. "With that heckling went any remote chance of [Goldwater's election.]"

AP/File
A furious Mayor Richard J. Daley stands at the microphone as shouts resound through the Chicago convention – ground zero in a year of political and social upheaval.
A room full of angry Democrats
Virtually the entire proceedings in Chicago were a public-relations disaster. From police brutality, unruly protesters, delegate bickering, media chaos, and caught-on-camera profanity, the convention showed a divided and distasteful Democratic party.

AP/File
Sen. George McGovern accepts the Democratic presidential nomination in Miami Beach, Fla.
McGovern's nocturnal nomination speech
If you don't remember George McGovern's acceptance speech, you're not alone. By the time the Democratic candidate overcame delegate feuding and poor floor management to accept the nomination, half the country was asleep. His post-midnight acceptance speech from Miami Beach, Florida was like a tree falling in a forest: virtually no one heard it. "Since then, conventions have become much more choreographed," says Podair. McGovern also made another lasting contribution to convention practice. His 1972 reforms established diversity quotas for Democratic delegates, assuring that television audiences would see a pluralistic party.

AP/File
President Ford and Ronald Reagan stand side-by-side at the Alameda Plaza Hotel in Kansas City, Mo., home to the 1976 Republican convention. Ford congratulated Reagan on a fine campaign.
Reagan upstages Ford
Gerald Ford, the incumbent who took office when President Richard Nixon resigned, fought off a strong challenge from Ronald Reagan, who represented the party's conservative wing. In a bid to bind the party's moderate and conservative factions, Ford invited Reagan to speak at the Kansas City convention. But the former Hollywood star did not follow script. "Reagan didn't call for coming back together, he called for the conservative wing to stay true to itself," says Cal Jillson, a professor of political science at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, who studies nominating conventions. Though Ford lost to Jimmy Carter, Reagan's powerful speech stirred the conservative base, preparing the way for his own successful candidacy in 1980. "Reagan's speech was so powerful that when people compared the two speeches, people were like, 'We nominated the wrong guy,'" says John Parmelee, a specialist in political communications at University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Florida.

AP
Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton waves his fist during his nomination of Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis at the Democratic convention in Atlanta.
Clinton impersonates the Energizer bunny
Bill Clinton, then an up-and-coming governor from Arkansas, was picked to give an energizing speech leading up to the nomination of Michael Dukakis in Atlanta. Instead, Clinton used the rare national showcase to give an Energizer bunny speech: it kept going and going and going... The restless audience enthusiastically applauded when Clinton, after more than 30 minutes, finally said, "In conclusion..." "It was a disaster," says Parmelee. But the next week, Clinton poked fun at himself on "The Tonight Show" and it blew over, Parmelee recalls. "He had destroyed any chance he had to become president of the US," says Podair. "I remember saying, 'You can scratch that guy off the list.' It shows how you can bounce back."

AP
Patrick Buchanan acknowledges cheers from the crowd during the Republican convention in Houston.
Buchanan's culture war cools voters
After stunning the incumbent but unpopular President George Bush in the New Hampshire primary by gaining nearly 40 percent of the vote, conservative firebrand Pat Buchanan earned a speaking role at the party's Houston convention. Like Reagan in 1976, he was called on to bring the party's conservative wing back in the fold to strengthen party unity. Like Reagan, Buchanan decided to ignore the charge, preferring to rally the party faithful with a red-meat speech about the nation's culture war. "[Buchanan's speech] ended up turning off the voters in the middle," says Parmelee. "[It] may have been appropriate to the party insiders in front of him, but it really did cause grave concern outside the convention," says Jillson.

AP
Delegates cheer President Clinton, shown on a giant screen while speaking at the Democratic convention in Los Angeles.
Clinton lingers too long in the spotlight
Despite years of scandal, Bill Clinton had presided over America's longest-ever economic expansion, and by the end of his second term, he had become a certified celebrity among Democrats. At the 1996 Chicago convention, Clinton called for a bridge to the 21st century; at the 2000 Los Angeles convention, he chose a tunnel to leave his last mark on the 20th century. In a scene reminiscent of a boxer entering the ring, cameras followed a beaming Clinton through a narrow corridor for minutes as he slowly made his solitary entrance into the convention arena. Some observers feel his grandstanding overshadowed Gore's sober address the next night. "Clinton should have had the tact not to preempt center stage," says Winkler. "He simply put the spotlight on himself – that had a negative effect."

Not all memorable convention moments made people wince or groan. The Monitor has also rounded up five enduring convention highlights...