....© 2000, Kimit A. Muston
I wanted to go to the Democratic convention this year but they wouldn't let me in. Only the 3,000 or so party loyalists, the 5 billion media types covering them and, of course, those citizens who have donated generously to the party, no doubt in the name of honest government, are allowed inside the dreaded "Security Zone" around the Staples Center. And I'm left wondering just how much I will miss by not being there.
Does it seem to you that conventions have begun to resemble a Vegas dinner show? They open with a chorus line of minorities dancing around the issues, then some has-beens do stand-up opening acts and for the big finale we have the star of the show motionless in the middle while the chorus tries to make it look as if he has momentum.
And nobody is watching this stuff, either. More people fell asleep watching "Survivor" than saw "W" smirk his way through his acceptance speech, and he had "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" as a lead-in. Still, this isn't supposed to be good TV, is it? It's supposed to be democracy; messy, rowdy and a little rough around the edges. Conventions are not supposed to fit inside the lines. After all they were invented by a bunch of conspiracy freaks, brought together by a murder. Well, maybe a murder.
The victim was supposed to be a perpetually broke gadfly named William Morgan. In September 1826 he emerged from jail in a tiny western New York town and promptly disappeared. The odds are he changed his name and snuck out of town. In the days before photography that was the standard way to declare bankruptcy.
But despite the lack of any evidence that Morgan was even dead there were folks who were positive he had been murdered. And they knew who had done him in, too.
See, Morgan claimed to have once been a Freemason and had told his creditors he was writing a book detailing the secret ceremonies and evil plans of that brotherhood.
I think the book was just a story to keep his creditors at bay with a promise of riches to come. George Washington was a Freemason, for crying out loud. The Freemasons promote public service and good works. You can go into almost any public library and read all of their super secret oaths and ceremonies. And yet there are still people today who insist that Freemasons are a secret satanic cult. And in 1826 Morgan's "death" galvanized them to form a political party: The Anti-Masons.
The Anti-Masons would fit into today's political spectrum somewhere between David Duke and...well, David Duke. They suspected the Masons of everything and everybody of being a Mason, even each other. And in 1831 the Anti-Masons gathered together in Baltimore, Maryland - where they could keep an eye on each other - and wrote the first party platform in history, which blamed most of the world's evils on alcohol and guess who.
That convention in Baltimore was the only good idea the Anti-Mason party ever had. Local leaders met face-to-face in smoke filled rooms with like minded folks from other states and had a good time not drinking and not being Freemasons. The convention promoted unity and solidarity in the party members.
The more rational political parties saw the advantages in conventions and they quickly copied the idea, adding alcohol in liberal quantities to grease the political wheels.
But unlike their invention the Anti-Masons never really caught on. Maybe it was the condemnation of alcohol that limited their appeal, but four years later they folded into the Whig party, which found broader success by hating Masons and Jews and Catholics and Irish and Germans and lots of other people. The Whigs got William Henry Harrison elected President in 1840 but he dropped dead a month after taking the oath. Maybe it was sign from God; the Whigs disappeared by the start of the Civil War.
Conventions worked for the next 150 years because they made history. They were dramatic and always potentially disastrous. Drunks in the galleries, prostitutes in the wings, promises and booze flowing like water; Shakespear could have scripted some of them. That was entertainment. It sure beat the political Muzak we are currently being subjected to.
Smoke filled rooms are now considered bio-hazards and "having a good time" is political suicide. Still, this year the Democrats have nominated a twice married Jew as V.P. and that would have been impossible in 1831. That's progress, I guess: gain a little, lose a little. But it sure ain't fun to watch.
Kimit Muston is an angry writer living in North Hollywood. He can be contacted at Inditer dot com. You may also read Kimit Muston in the Los Angeles Daily News and the Los Angeles Times.