Democracy in America

NEW YORK--Like a Pentagon flunky delivering the daily body count, Norma Lee stands amid the drifting clouds of hair spray, raising her voice a little so it will carry over the killer-bee whine of the foot-massaging machines. "Sunday--89 reporters groomed, 51 men and 38 women. Monday--131 reporters groomed, more than half of them men."

This, then, is the scene outside the Democratic convention--an endless cavalcade of politicking, oratory and hair care. The networks can show you quite a bit but they haven't taken their cameras to the eighth floor of the Statler Hilton, home of the Bristol Myers-Clairol Press Fresh-Up Lounge.

The idea that became the Fresh-Up Lounge first visited Lee a few months before the 1968 Democratic convention. "Back then, it was for women only. I thought to myself, "men have their bars, so women need some place to go and relax,' " she explains. "A different company, that's all I say," sponsored her effort in Chicago, at a time when grooming meant something political. "But now, men are just as involved in fashion as women," she says, directing yet another reporter, clutching a complimentary can of Miller, into the bedroom/salon.

"It's so nice to see men finally beginning to take care of their hair," Mary Crosby, chief of the eight-man styling team, said as she worked on one midwestern reporter. "I hate messy hair, I just hate it," Crosby added, pointing to the pink-caped men hunkered down in front of lighted mirrors as proof of their emancipation from old-fashioned prejudices against $30 haircuts.

But there are still a few shreds of the masculinity left. "Get that camera out of here, one newspaper man shouted when another reporter produced a Nikon. "My friends back home, not to mention my editor, would solder me if they knew I was here." And so the photographer left, but not before picking up a "Hospitality Bag" filled with free samples of products from hairspray to No-Doz. In the corner, Norma Lee is explaining one more time that business, or hospitality, is booming. "So far today, we've had over 100, more than half of them men..."

All the TV cameras came to the convention rally of the campus democrats of America, but they didn't stay long--in fact, two-thirds of the audience left as soon as the organizers announced that "featured guest" Chip Carter was too busy lobbying for the MX missile to show up.

The Campus Democrats of America is the "official student wing of the Democratic party." Its press kit teatures a one-paragraph clipping from page 51 of The New York Times of June 3, 1979, the early date at which the CDA decided to endorse President Carter for re-election. There is also a letter with the salutation "Dear fellow Democrats," which points out that one of the organization's seven goals is to "create a win psychology." A memo paid for by the Democratic National Committee mentions proudly that when President Carter called for draft registration, "the CDA immediately saw the propriety of the president's stance and voiced its support for registration." The newsletter adds that "the culmination of CDA's work occurred when CDA president Bernie Friedman was selected to be the youth representative at the White House signing of the registration proclamation. In recognition of his outstanding work, he received a personal greeting and a thank you from the president."

During the series of addresses that opened the CDA rally, the following information was gleaned:

"1980 is the beginning of a new decade." --President Friedman

"I'll be going back to school in a few weeks."   --Charles Leznick, head of Yale students for Carter

"Many students today are into serious capitalism, and that is a good thing."   --Charles Mannet, chairman of the Democratic National Committee finance council

"Young people are not millionaires."   --Christ Gershon, political director of operating engineers international union

"I can't believe we sat through this and Chip Carter isn't going to come."   --An NBC reporter

There are other facets of the conventions the TV cameras ignore--the railroad press lounge in the Garden basement, for example, where employees of the railway lobby distribute free beer, sandwiches, and advice about the need for more government subsidies to the rail industry. But the biggest distortion of the TV broadcasts is their ability to add excitement where it doesn't exist, and paradoxically, to miss the spirit during the few moments of true emotion.

For the most part, the convention floor is full-people sit in their flag-red folding chairs and chat, sleep, or read The Times. But the network crews, self-contained TV stations complete with backpack transmitters, constantly criss-cross the floor in search of some small scandal. When one stops, the others gather. Like blood beginning to clot, the aisle where Garrick Utley halts suddenly attracts Lesly Stahl, Sam Donaldson, and their assorted assistants. Tuesday afternoon, while most of the delegates stared unseeingly at the podium or talked with someone in an adjacent delegation, Sander Vanocur decided that the Massachusetts delegation needed visiting. Pretty soon, the Bay State section was full of more electronics and lights than Xenon's, the boisterous disco that last night hosted the Carter victory party. "It's all because of the blue phone and the red phone," a delegation aide explained enthusiastically. "The blue phone goes to the Kennedy trailer; the red one to the podium. To have them both in the same place--it's a very rare combination.

There are occasionally novelties to divert the delegates. During the debate on federally-funded abortions, a few delegates grew tired of waving their "Vote Life" signs and decided to unfurl a 20-foot banner with a picture of a fetus and the legend "abortion is murder." The "pro-choice" campaigners in the area decided they didn't "have to stand still for that kind of shit," as one explained. So they jumped in front of the baby poster, blocking the view with their banners, which featured a picture of the Statue of Liberty. The battle continued for the entire 20 minutes the abortion vote took; finally, inevitably, the dead baby backers began to push and shove, and pretty soon pro-choice and pro-life were hammering away at each other. Each side accused the other of fascism; there was a good deal of loose talk about genocide and matrocide and Christianity. And when it was all over, pro-choice backers got to crow, when their side won the vote by a comfortable margin. More than likely, the sign would not have made much of a difference, but it's the thought that counts.

In short, the floor of the convention is not the hot spot one might expect. "I came here thinking I would be awed," Mary Ellen Preusser, a former Cambridge City Councilor and a Kennedy alternate, said as she watched the debate. "But so much of it is dull," she added, comparing the scene to the Cambridge City Council with an extra 3200 councilors. One reason for the boredom is that in most cases delegates don't even vote; unless they want to deviate from the Kennedy or Carter line, the delegation whip for each candidate simply casts their vote for them. "If the Carter person says 'Tom O'Neill can't vote, he's across the hall talking to someone,' then the Kennedy leader says, 'Sure, and how about Governor King?'" Massachusetts delegation aide Greg Jarboe explains. "They always manage to work it out," he adds, flashing the type of grin that marks people who like the game of politics very, very much.

But if TV exaggerates the excitement of some incidents, it also drains the emotion from the few hours in each gathering that are truly spirited. Ted Kennedy's supporters came to New York fueled by a deeper passion than the Carter backers; in the last few months, theirs had become a campaign of sad nobility disguised as issues.

The shouting begins when Joan Kennedy enters the hall; it is clear that the Kennedy forces want some preaching tonight. They are in no mood for deals--when Carter transportation secretary Neal Goldsmith announces that "compromise unity language is circulating on the floor," they boo. When Carter consumer affair representative Esther Peterson ends her defense of the Georgia presidency by yelling "Four more years," there are enough jeers to positively melt the heart of Rep. John B. Anderson (R-Ill.). And so, by the time Rep. Barbara McClusky (D-Md.) introduces Kennedy, they are ready. The orchestra plays "Macnamara's Band," the blue-and-white placards begin to wave, and the "magnificent example of grace, courage and valor" strides out on stage.

From the day the campaign began, Kennedy speeches featured miscues and bumbled phrases. To a Black audience he once decided to mimic Rep. Walter Fauntroy (D-D.C.) and came off sounding like Steppin' Fetchit. At a girls' school in New Hampshire he led a confused audience in singing an off-key "Happy Birthday" to himself. Wherever he went, the answers to questions were filled with umms, ahs, and the sentences strung themselves out in endless, knotted ropes of words. But Tuesday night, once he had lost, once he had fumbled a lead that once seemed as solid as any in politics could be, Kennedy was ready to orate, to stretch his Boston accent and jut his jaw and preach the Good Word.

His speech, which the media powers that be quickly filed away under classic, drew on the fathers of Democratic liberalism--Ronald Reagan "has no right to quote the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt," Kennedy said to the biggest cheers of his address. Offering a "New Hope" where his brother had offered a "New Frontier," Kennedy moved beyond his standard economic line to evoke the image not only of a generation mired in economic misery, but also a "generation unsurpassed in its potential."

He would have been met with cheers had he read from the sports page of the Daily News, but Kennedy added to his welcome with the force of his speech. The delegates paid him tribute when, for the first time all week, they sat still and listened. And when he was done, they paid him tribute again with a demonstration that lasted 35 minutes. From the bottom of Madison Square Garden, the center court at a Knicks game to the cheap seats around the top, the blue-and-white signs flapped up and down, the delegates shouting "We want Ted." On the floor, the standard-bearers from "Kennedy corner," home of the Massachusetts, New Jersey and California entourages, began a slow march around the floor, carrying their signs, slapping hands, hugging as they went.

Carter patrons filled much of the spectators' gallery; they sat quietly, immobile as the demonstration surged. "Fucking Harvard snobs," one murmured. On the floor, a few southern delegates began a "Jim--Eeee Carter" chant, but before long it disappeared into the chorus of "We want Ted." Where television had benefited from its narrow, tight focus before, it now suffered; the power of the Kennedy backers was the most impressive on a grand scale. The only person in the hall able even to dampen the spirits of the demonstrators was the orchestra vocalist, a bald, leather-jacketed hybrid of Johnny Rotten and Guy Lombardo who forgot the words to "If I Had a Hammer," an error that by all accounts was quite welcome. In the end, it was almost anti-climactic that Kennedy won his platform battle; his real fight, with the party, with the bitterness of a year-long campaign that led nowhere slowly, was won in the tide of cheers that refused to die.