86 Politics and elections
to Republican politicians that Goldwater’s bid for the presidency was lost,
many of them withdrew into their local political battles, and left the national
candidate to fight on virtually alone.
The national convention has two other major functions to perform: to for-
mulate the party platform, and to nominate the vice-presidential candidate.
Before the convention meets, a Resolutions Committee or Platform Com-
mittee is appointed to consider the content of the party’s programme and to
report to the convention. Often party platforms are dull documents phrased
in vague and general terms in order not to offend important sections of the
party, yet this is not always the case. It was the strong civil rights proposals
contained in the 1948 Democratic programme that provoked the defection of
the Dixiecrats. In 1960 the content of the Republican platform became a ma-
jor point of dispute between Richard Nixon and Governor Rockefeller when
the latter, finding the draft programme vague and inadequate, threatened to
fight it on the floor of the convention if alterations were not made. In general,
however, given the nature of American party politics, it is impossible for the
party programme to be a bold, exciting document, and as it is drawn up
before the presidential candidate has been nominated he cannot be closely
bound by what it contains.
The nomination of the vice-presidential candidate follows the balloting
for the presidential nomination. Throughout much of its history the office of
vice-president has been insignificant, and as a consequence the nomination
of a vice-presidential candidate was not considered a matter of great conse-
quence, particularly as it comes at the end of the convention when delegates
are tired and wish to get away. The position came to be used as a sop to the
unsuccessful faction at the convention, so giving balance to the ticket, by
drawing the vice-presidential nominee from a region of the country different
from that of the presidential candidate. In recent years, however, the stature
of the vice-presidency has been growing, and consequently a rather differ-
ent attitude towards the nomination of vice-presidential candidates has been
perceptible. In 1940 President Roosevelt threatened that he would not run
for a third term if Henry Wallace was not nominated for the vice-presidency.
Wallace, and later Richard Nixon, were both active and important vice-
presidents. The assassination of President Kennedy dramatised, as no other
event could, the potential importance of the man holding the vice-presiden-
tial office. In 1964, partly because there was no contest for the presidential
nomination in the Democratic Party, there developed a distinct campaign
on behalf of Hubert Humphrey for the vice-presidential nomination. In an
unprecedented move President Johnson appeared on the rostrum at the con-
vention and put Humphrey’s name before the delegates. The selection of
Spiro Agnew by Mr Nixon as his vice-presidential running-mate suggested a
return to the earlier view of the insignificance of the office, but the quality of
more recent nominees has reflected the desire for a more weighty role for the
vice-president, and perhaps a recognition of the importance of the succession
in the case of the death or resignation of the president. The selection of Ger-