Party Leaders to Eye Changes in Conventions
WASHINGTON — Top leaders from both major parties announced formation today of a bipartisan commission to study ways of updating, and perhaps shortening, the next national political conventions in 1992.
The Commission on National Political Conventions plans to make recommendations to the Democratic and Republican parties well before the next nominating conventions.
Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., who steps down in January as GOP national chairman, and Charles T. Manatt, former Democratic national chairman, will serve as co-chairmen of the commission. Both said at a news conference that they want to update conventions in an era when changing nominating rules and the growth of the primary system have taken much of the suspense out of conventions.
Fahrenkopf said the commission will consider “whether or not the convention process (can) be streamlined in some way, to make it crisper, make it cleaner from the standpoint of presenting a program that will attract more Americans to watch it.”
He said the panel, which includes some network television representatives, will also “take a hard look at what really the role should be of the media,” particularly television, in covering conventions.
He and Manatt said they do not intend to conduct a broader study of the much-criticized primary process.
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