Dem
51
GOP
49
Continuing on with the domestic political impact of the mess in the Middle East, the Democrats are thinking about their 1968 convention (in Chicago), and are thinking about their convention this year (also in Chicago; bad luck!), and are sweating bullets. On one hand, they don't want shots of police officers and protesters in a state of open warfare, like what happened back in the 1960s. On the other hand, they don't want to seem like they are stifling dissent, fascist-style.
Back in '68, the Democrats had the assistance of Chicago's mayor, Richard J. Daley, which may or may not have been a good thing ("not a good thing" is really the correct answer here). This year, Chicago's newly elected Mayor Brandon Johnson has no interest in getting involved, one way or another. So, he won't be helping maintain order, but he won't be doing harm, either, the way Daley did.
The main solution that the Democratic bigwigs are planning on is... technology. While the party had the bad luck of choosing the worst possible city for this year's convention (given the circumstances and historical context), it has the inadvertent good luck that the 2020 convention was virtual, thanks to the pandemic. Much thought is going into replicating much of that, like having key speakers addressing the convention from in front of their state's Capitol building, or having the delegations announce their nominations on video, in an appropriate setting (e.g., Rhode Islanders announce at a clam bake, or Texans announce from the Alamo). The official explanation will be "it's now a tradition!" There may be some truth to that, but it's also a means of reducing the opportunities for disruption.
The Democrats might also move the actual counting of delegates to a different venue (they have reserved two in Chicago), and maybe even to a time a couple of weeks before the convention. Here, the Party might actually be helped by Ohio's ballot-rules nonsense. "We had to do it earlier," the DNC might say, "because Ohio just wouldn't change its rules, and we didn't want to risk it in court."
There are also some Democrats who advise putting the actual convention gavel in the hands of someone with a well-established reputation for having a spine of steel; a no-nonsense type who knows how to maintain order. The name of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has been bandied about, as has that of L.A. mayor Karen Bass (D).
The Democrats might also have one other thing that breaks in their favor, relative to 1968. Back then, the Democrats got all the blame for the Vietnam War, and so their convention got all the protesters. The Republicans, by contrast, held their convention in Florida (the first time a Republican convention was held in a Confederate state after the Civil War), and relied on the services of the Florida National Guard to make sure order was maintained. So, there was a pretty sharp contrast between the two parties' conventions in 1968.
This year, on the other hand, there's no particular reason to think that only one party will attract protesters. And, by virtue of not holding the White House, the Republicans actually get to deal with that problem first. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has foreseen this problem, and wants the U.S. Secret Service to take responsibility for moving any and all protesters far away from the site of the gathering in Milwaukee. The letter McConnell wrote does not specify exactly where he would like the protesters moved to, but he's probably thinking something like... the Moon. It can be the first joint operation between the USSS and NASA. Time will tell if the GOP adopts the McConnell plan, or goes with something else. (Z)