What Excuse Do Democrats Now Have For Holding A Virtual Convention?

Biden’s debate meltdown has Democrats scrambling, but they no longer have an excuse for holding a virtual nomination.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has been planning a virtual, videocast, online convention like that occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic. In another carefully stage-managed event, the pro forma nomination of Joe Biden and the party platform approval was to take place prior to the terrestrial convention, avoiding any sort of disruption that might somehow make it inside the doors of Chicago’s United Center between August 19 and 22.

Indeed, anyone who actually bothered to watch the videocast would likely see no point to watching another big, boring rubber stamp broadcast from Chicago.

attendees at the democratic national convention

The excuse for holding this event virtually, in advance of the terrestrial convention, was that the delegate-rich state of Ohio had an August 7 deadline for filing a candidate’s name to appear on the ballot. However, lost in all the news of the Democratic Party’s post-debate chaos is one detail—that this excuse for holding a virtual convention no longer exists. On June 2, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) signed a bill into law moving the state’s filing deadline to September 1, 2024.

That development was little reported, and three weeks later, on June 24, the DNC voted to go ahead with the virtual convention, with 360 members voting yes, five no, and two abstaining. Why? What could be the reason aside from total control of a top-down process?