The Life Of the Party

MASSACHUSETTS Democratic leaders proved last weekend that their skills in manipulation are still intact. They tacked onto a standard issues convention a nonbinding preference poll, and a dull weekend in Springfield was transformed into a national media event--"a meeting of the leaders of the free world," according to one such aspiring leader, former Vice President Walter F. Mondale.

Many have cried that such a move was foul play, and that issues--the true purpose of the gathering--took a back seat to the glamour of the political pageant. And their argument is bolstered by the fact that the straw poll, originally scheduled as the last item on the weekend agenda, was moved earlier in the day, so the results could make the network news and the early Sunday papers.

Those, indeed, are legitimate complaints. But focusing on this criticism clouds over a more serious problem raised by the weekend festivities--that the "bosses" continue to latch onto their ironclad control of the party, and are willing to pull almost anything to maintain it.

Two specific floor fights demonstrated this domination. One involved an amendment to the party's charter on "accountability" which would have required that all candidates for statewide office issue a statement explaining which parts of the party platform they did not support. That is a reasonable request if the platform is to mean anything for the party label, but the more conservative legislative leadership--who often find themselves out of line with the more progressive planks of their party--argued against the move and defeated it with parliamentary maneuverings.

The second battle involved a proposed endorsement of the long-ignored, much-needed rules reform. Currently the leaders in both Houses-retain extreme power over their branches by singlehandedly controlling appointments and chairmanships, and the proposal would make the distribution of this power more democratic. The Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate, however, felt sufficiently threatened by the symbolic gesture to pull out the stops in opposition. Midway through the debate, they engineered a quorum call, and then, according to some observers, engineered an exodus to sufficiently deplete the ranks and prevent further business.

The very defeat of these measures underlines how sorely they are needed. The straw nonbinding presidential preference poll taken at the convention will probably mean very little in the overall scheme of things. But the battle over accountability and rules reform, in which a few party leaders were able to manipulate the proceedings to preserve their power, was a significant display of what ails politics in the state.