Politics and my father

My father was a Republican, as I've mentioned before. Prior to his death, however, he admitted that Harry S. Truman wasn't such a bad president, even if he was a democrat.

We are coming to the "convention" season. Back in the 40s and 50s all conventions were what is known in today's politcal-eze, as brokered. I don't recall any of the conventions in the 50s and early 60s being cut and dried -- that is you knew who the presidential candidate was going to be before the convention began.

I don't know if that was because there were no primaries, I just don't recall, and I'm too lazy to dig it out on Google. But I do recall the 1952 conventions. We BORROWED a TV so that daddy could watch the two events. And back then, it wasn't just a prime-time TV happening, it was all day long for six days -- how boring is that? Well, I was required to sit and watch this stuff because my father wanted me to experience history in action.

Even when Dwight David Eisenhower was nominated to be the Republican candidate, it wasn't a shoe-in. And then the vice-presidential candidate had to be nominated and elected. Again, Nixon was far from someone they wanted on the ticket.

Eisenhower was the Republican candidate, and the Democrats picked Adlai Stevenson, and I think his vice-presidential running mate was Hubert Humphreys, but I'm not sure about that.

So they had these "brokered" conventions --both parties did -- and it was interesting, actually, mainly because there wasn't too much "punditing" about what happens if they choose this person, or what will happen if they chose that person. Why is Candidate A better than Candidate B. And there certainly was no "operation chaos" -- efforts by the opposition to upset the whole process.

My father sat spellbound watching those conventions, and from time to time he would yell at the TV (like the TV could hear him?) and tell those folks what idiots they were to even think of nominating so-and-so, and then when his candidate came on and was being heralded, he was so happy.

Daddy was very much in favor of Eisenhower's nomination. He thought he would undo a lot of what FDR had done (get rid of a lot of the socialism that had crept into the government because of FDR-induced legislation). And he KNEW that Eisenhower would get us out of Korea pretty quickly. We had lost two of our own church men in that war by 1952, and in a small town that is a lot to lose.

So, Eisenhower was elected, and we gave the TV back to whomever we borrowed it from, and were living in a TV-free, peaceful home again until 1953 -- one year later -- when dad gave in and purchased us a TV.

So, if the Democrat convention is "brokered" it isn't the end of the world, it's just the way it was back when.....