OKLAHOMA CITY
Walking through Pam Pollard's home in the Oklahoma City suburbs is like stepping into a time portal to past Republican National Conventions.
Shelves and counters are filled with badges, buttons and other trinkets from the five national conventions Pollard has attended, dating back to the 2004 RNC in New York. There are vests, pins and ribbons, along with oddities, like a “limited convention edition” box of macaroni and cheese from the 2008 RNC.
Then there are the pictures: President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, seeking reelection, stand with their wives, Laura Bush and Lynne Cheney; the late Sen. John McCain and his running mate, then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, wave. Pollard herself stands smiling with Don Jr., Eric, Ivanka and Melania Trump.
Pollard, 64, is the outgoing Oklahoma committeewoman to the Republican National Committee. When Republicans gather in Milwaukee Monday, she will be a delegate to her sixth consecutive national convention. She has stories — and swag — from each one.
For most of those conventions, there was little suspense over who would be the party’s nominee when delegates gathered to cast their votes for the top of the ticket. That’s the case again this year for Republicans, with former President Donald Trump having locked up the GOP nomination early in the primary season.
For Democrats, the situation is more complicated – and uncertain. President Joe Biden is the presumptive nominee but a dismal debate performance in June threw into question whether he would stay in the race, with some Democrats calling for him to drop out. Biden has insisted he is not leaving. The convention scheduled for August in Chicago is only adding pressure as Biden and the party try to chart the way forward, with limited time and few options.
The Democrats’ drama could make this summer’s conventions among the most consequential in recent history, raising the stakes not only around who will be the party’s nominee but how both parties prepare heading into November.
Pollard and others who have attended conventions over the years say that besides the pomp and confetti, that’s why the quadrennial events are essential.
For people tuning in from far outside the convention halls, the events also serve a purpose. Today’s political convention is a carefully scripted show — one that a party spends months crafting, from choosing a location to the stagecraft, speakers and even some planned surprises.
It's all intended to communicate a message the parties want voters to hear, and to win over the people who will decide the election.
The two major parties' national conventions bring together thousands of delegates, individuals who represent U.S. states and territories plus the District of Columbia.
These delegates cast their ballots to give the formal nod to a party's presidential nominee. Some delegates are obligated to support a particular candidate because of the outcome of primaries or caucuses, while some delegates are not. (Democrats use “pledged” and “unpledged” to describe which delegates are obligated by party rules to vote a certain way and which delegates are not, while Republicans use “bound” and “unbound”).
Through much of U.S. history the conventions were where decisions were made on awarding those delegates. That changed in the aftermath of the 1968 Democratic convention, where Hubert Humphrey was nominated despite not having entered a single primary, and critics railed against what they said were years of backroom deals.
The aftermath of that convention - featuring a nominee who divided the party and never participated in a primary - hangs over the drama about Biden's nomination this year. Democratic divisions coming out of the 1968 convention helped Republican Richard Nixon win the presidency, and Democrats today worry the same intraparty divides could help Trump this fall.
In the past 50-plus years most party nominations have been short on drama, with a couple of exceptions. Both parties had intrigue in 2016 when Trump and Hillary Clinton faced challenges at their respective conventions from Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Bernie Sanders, respectively. Ultimately Trump and Clinton each got a majority of the delegates in a single round of voting.
It remains to be seen what Democrats will do this year. Even before the questions surfaced about Biden’s bid, the party said it would hold a virtual roll call to nominate him ahead of the convention that begins Aug. 19. It was unclear as of early July when or if that would happen.
If the delegate votes at the convention are only an affirmation of the primaries, “conventions are kind of anachronistic," said James McCann, an expert on political methodology at Purdue University. "But, that’s not necessarily the only function of a convention.”
There also is required work that must be done, beyond the formal nomination and voting on the party’s nominee, said Leah Daughtry, who has served as CEO of two Democratic National Conventions, both historic.
At the first, in 2008, Democrats officially made then-Sen. Barack Obama the nation's first Black major party presidential nominee. Her second was in 2016, when Clinton was the first woman in the U.S. nominated for president by a major party.
Daughtry noted that Democrats use the convention to do legal business and set the party's platform, a major document that states the party's positions, beliefs and goals. The same goes for the Republicans.
That work is usually the first night of the convention, Daughtry said. After that it becomes a messaging production.
For the delegates, there also is value in spending time together, said Jon Grinspan, curator of political history at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
“We have a big nation. We have these huge networks at our political parties,” Grinspan said. “And for them all to come together in one city and do an event together, it is really important in building out this national network that runs campaigns. But they might not necessarily be picking the person they want that day.”
The gatherings also are an opportunity for up-and-coming politicians to make a name for themselves, as Obama did with a speaking role at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
Daughtry, 60, of New York, is heading this year to her eighth convention, having missed only the 1996 event since 1992.
Each convention, said Daughtry, has its own character that depends on the candidate, location and “the politics of the moment.”
Like Pollard, she has paraphernalia and memories, including the 2008 convention where she was the CEO and responsible for moving the entire production on its fourth and final night from the Pepsi Center, a closed arena in downtown Denver, to what was then Invesco Field at Mile High, an open-air stadium that seated thousands more people. There, Obama accepted the nomination.
“Pulling that off was a feat. And pulling it off in a very short timeframe was work," she said. The change of venue allowed Obama to accept the nomination in front of the kind of massive crowds he was drawing during his campaign, and made for memorable TV moments in a then-swing state he wanted to clinch, Colorado.
The 2016 Philadelphia convention was memorable because it was contested. Sanders had delegates as well as Clinton and he hadn’t dropped out, making a competitive vote necessary.
Pollard's first memory of conventions was during her childhood, when television coverage “took everything off the airways and dominated everything.”
“You didn’t have a choice as a child for about four hours" but to watch, she said.
Pollard’s first convention in 2004 in New York was memorable as she connected with the New York Police Department because of the shared trauma of terrorism — the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York and the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.
Another memory that stands out is the nomination of Palin as McCain's vice president, in 2008, Pollard said.
Palin won over the convention crowd, and many in America, with her speech that night in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she told the audience the only difference between hockey moms like herself and pit bulls was “lipstick.”
But, the one she remembers most was in Cleveland in 2016. Pollard was the Oklahoma party chair then and led the state delegation, including announcing who her state’s delegates would support in the roll call of states. She still has the state sign the delegation carried.
The acceptance speeches of the nominees, typically delivered on the convention's last night, are the highlight now.
In the distant past candidates did not attend, let alone speak at the conventions. Their presence was considered unseemly, precisely because of the deal making. That created “considerable suspense and uncertainty,” said David Karol, associate professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland.
“What’s happened is the convention has become a showcase for the parties,” Karol said. “It’s a way of getting attention for the nominees.”
Brian Shellem, 50, is preparing for his first national convention, as a delegate from Oklahoma.
“The importance of going to the convention, it’s the sausage making,” said Shellem, a former mayoral candidate in Edmond. “It is important that we hash through the issues that are important to each party and what the rules are.”
While casting his vote for the party nominee and running mate is historic, the bigger point for him is "what do you bring back with you and how do you make a more impactful change to our state and our county and our local communities?”
Gaylon Freeman, 63, another first-time delegate chosen at the Oklahoma state convention, is excited to head to Milwaukee. Freeman was an alternate delegate in 2020 but did not attend because of COVID.
“I was telling everybody, ‘I’m going to get to go’ and when it didn’t happen I can’t even describe the letdown," he said.
A longtime educator and school principal, Freeman is a minister with humble beginnings. The idea he will be in the same place as the former and possibly future president is exactly why the conventions still matter.
“I’m from eastern Oklahoma. I tell everybody I’m as common as dirt," Freeman said.
Now he will represent his state, his county and his family, including his father, a military veteran. Freeman said he doesn't know what to expect but knows the platform and priorities chosen there will be important.
“I’ve watched conventions since I was old enough to watch TV, and they were on TV,” he said.
Seeing one in person?
“I don’t know what kind of excitement it’s going to be. You’ve heard the phrase ‘the hair stands up on the back of your neck?’”
Associated Press journalists Serkan Gurbuz and Takahiro Kinoshita contributed.
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