Political conventions have conventions. The Republican convention preserved the appearances, enjoyed some rock-em, sock-em up-with-us and down-with-the-other-guys moments and told, re-told and re-told again the story of John McCain’s genuine heroism as a prisoner of war, crushed, alone, beaten, untreated and untended, and his adherence to duty, honor country.
John McCain told his own story directly and simply for the benefit of those who had only heard it second hand or were simply not paying attention to the video and other speakers. The man’s account imports its own authenticity and credibility. He made the other accounts not only redundant but patronizing, as if we needed someone who was not there to attest to the truth we heard from the man himself.
That tension, between the palpable authenticity of his own account, and the unnecessary recitation beforehand, came close to breaking an overarching convention, which is that we all pretend that this is not a staged event of actors speaking lines, playing stock character roles. You could call it “robbing the ritual,” or breaking the spell. We know that nominating conventions are Mediaeval morality plays enlarged to gargantuan scale. We knowthat the waving flag backdrop evokes George Scott as the brilliant, maverick General Patton. But we pretend not to notice.
When Senator McCain promises to “keep taxes low,” he draws the expected cheers. When he speaks of bipartisanship, there may be scattered polite applause, but no one imagines any real relationship between low taxes and divided government. While it is true that the President can veto acts of Congress raising taxes, it is also true that he or she cannot veto the expiration of temporary tax cuts that an opposition Congress declines to extend.
Imagining a President McCain keeping that promise also requires imagining him also keeping the promise of reaching across the aisle to reach agreement on the wisdom of keeping taxes low. Taking the candidate at his word that he will keep his word necessarily leads to the question “how?” How will he find that result?
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