THE SCRAPBOOK, as a general rule, disapproves of quoting oneself, but sometimes it can't be helped. Right about this time four years ago, after three stupefying days at the Republican National Convention in San Diego, we editorialized that the convention had been Bill Clinton's "ultimate triumph." The gathering carried all the hallmarks of Clintonized politics: the obsession with image over substance, the sly substitution of sentiment for ideas, the highly disciplined refusal to utter a word or phrase that had not been vetted and certified by focus groups and polls -- recall, if you dare, Newt Gingrich singing his hymn to beach volleyball, or Elizabeth Dole wading into the crowd to perform a harrowing impression of Sally Jessy Raphael.
And now, four years later, all signs are that the Clinton juggernaut will roll right into Philadelphia's First Union Center, where the Republicans will gather to nominate George W. Bush.
For doubters, consider one day's worth of press releases from the convention's PR operation, all of which spit forth from THE SCRAPBOOK's fax machine within a few hours of each other last Wednesday. They suggest that the proceedings in the City of Brotherly Love will be an orgy of empathy. "SON OF IMMIGRANT FIELD WORKER TO ADDRESS GOP CONVENTION ENTIRELY IN SPANISH." "BREAST CANCER CRUSADER TO BRING MESSAGE TO REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION." "BLIND MOUNTAIN CLIMBER TO LEAD PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO OPEN REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION." "TELETUBBY TINKY WINKY TO LEAD CONVENTION IN SINGALONG BEFORE MANDATORY NAP TIME."
We made that last one up. But only the last one. Now we do not want to be misunderstood: THE SCRAPBOOK thinks empathy is a wonderful thing. But it is properly a personal, even intimate thing, and it loses some crucial element when translated into the idiom of mass media. These are synthetic expressions of show-biz empathy -- crude instances of identity politics being squeezed into a made-for-TV package. They are silly, they are cynical, but at least they are understandable.
What's less understandable -- to shift focus only slightly -- is the convention's open hostility even to the mere expression of ideas. Bob Dole betrayed this hostility four years ago by famously declaring he had no interest in reading the platform of the party that had nominated him for president. Now comes Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson, chairman of this year's platform committee -- the fellow, in other words, responsible for writing the platform -- to declare that the party's formal explanation of itself doesn't count.
Appearing on CNN last week, Thompson was asked about the platform's assertion that Republicans "support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life." The assertion -- which after all is a declaration of a longstanding party principle -- will stay in the platform, Thompson said, but that doesn't mean the nominee agrees with it. "I'm quite confident that Governor Bush will not be able to embrace it," he said. (Those Bush appointees may not respect family values or the sanctity of life, but you can bet they'll be empathetic.) So now we know why there haven't been, and probably won't be, any bloody platform fights this year: Republicans have decided that declarations of principle don't matter.
All of which is sure to satisfy the convention's chairman, the extremely empathetic Andy Card, who is vowing to put on "a different kind of convention for a different kind of Republican." Too true: a Clintonized convention, for a Clintonized party.