Who's Afraid of a Brokered Convention?

This morning James Boyce wrote a blog post for The Huffington Post that began with a proposition, which is is likely to be on the minds of many registered Democrats:

Earlier this week, Howard Dean echoed what many are thinking, a protracted struggle for the nomination running into and perhaps to the end of the convention makes it hard to imagine we would have much success in November …

I think this proposition needs to be challenged. Of course, it is probably true that all of us (with more than a little help from the mainstream media) are too used to viewing a convention as a coronation, rather than an opportunity for deliberation among a couple of thousand folks selected to represent the political party. Nevertheless, it is understandable that the party leadership would want to avoid deliberation, even if it is the most explicit exercise of the democratic process. For one thing it is rarely an easy matter. Indeed, the proceedings can be so difficult that one sociological study of town meetings found them to be downright stress-inducing. Then, of course, you have all those media representatives, who, by all rights, should be kept away from the actual deliberative processes and therefore have nothing to do with themselves other than babble away in the interest of "complete coverage," while deliberations proceed at a pace that can never be scheduled in advance.

On the other hand presumably most of the credentialed delegates to a convention have some familiarity with the workings of our government, which means they have been exposed to at least some deliberative situations at some time or another. So it isn't as if they are not equipped to engage in deliberation. More importantly, deliberation is more about arriving at agreement, rather than sorting out "winners" from "losers" or (worse yet) "right" from "wrong."

A divided Democratic party will probably be the Republicans' strongest weapon on Election Day; so a coronation in the wake of unresolved division would be the best way to ensure four more years of a Republican administration. All this leads me to believe that, however messy, time-consuming, and probably stressful deliberation may be, it is the best way to honor the foundations of our government and go into the election campaign itself with the strength and commitment to win. Sorry, Howard; but, as they say, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger!