Contested conventions?

Both Republican and Democratic party leaders seem upset by the chaos that's surrounded their nominating process this year, according to the New York Times.  They wring their hands, trying to figure out how to make everything go more smoothly in 2020.

Chaotic?  Not really, not by historical standards.  In 1924, the Democrats took 103 ballots to nominate John W. Davis -- a candidate no one really wanted and that few recall now.  He lost in November to a more vibrant and dynamic Republican candidate, Calvin Coolidge.

That convention was an extreme, but until very recently every convention was a contested convention.  Few states held primaries, and many state delegations arrived pledged to their governor or senior senator -- usually a holding pattern designed to give the state some  leverage in the ultimate decision. 

Today's politicians -- and public -- shudder at such "smoke-filled rooms" and behind the scenes horse-trading.  Maybe they're right.  But it's doubtful that a Donald Trump would have been nominated by party regulars negotiating over shots of whiskey.

Today's system doesn't really make sense from a theoretical perspective.  A political party is a private political organization of members with similar political briefs who supposedly place candidates reflecting their views before the electorate.  Primary elections transfer the choice of delegates from party activists to everybody willing to call himself a party member, at least for a day.  And -- as the Republicans note with concern -- in many states, the primary voter need not even register as a party member.  Independents, and even Democrats, are entitled to vote in those Republican primaries.

(In Washington and California, in all elections except presidential, political parties no longer have any official standing in elections.  Elections are, in effect, non-partisan.  The two candidates for each position with the highest number of votes -- regardless of party -- run against each other in the general election.)

The Times observes that politicians could go either way, four years from now -- give the general public even greater say in choosing convention delegates, in order to stoke enthusiasm; or, give choice of delegates back to party officials, at least to some extent, and allow those delegates to choose the candidate at the convention itself.  This latter approach restores to the party some control over its own destiny.

I lean toward the latter, primarily because an organization formed to promote certain political beliefs should be able to choose the candidates who accomplish that objective.  When political conventions were still meaningful, both parties still included members with a variety of competing policy approaches, but more or less unified by the party's overall political direction (i.e., conservative or liberal).  But the successful candidate represented -- usually -- the majority of the politically active members of the party.

The primaries may have been "exciting" this year, but the Republican party was captured by a non-politician whose proposed platform (insofar as any existed) poorly represented the rank and file of the party, and the Democrats came close to nominating a candidate who had never before called himself a Democrat.  Assuming without deciding that party government is good and useful, I can't believe that what we have seen this year has been a desirable approach to party government.

And you just want "excitement"?  Conventions of both parties never lacked for excitement -- even as recently as the 1960s.  If the networks have archived footage of the events of some of those conventions, they would make interesting and enjoyable viewing today.
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"Without objection, it is so ordered."