by Stan Cutler

The drama that will unfold at the Wells Fargo Center in July won’t be over the Presidential nominee. Hillary Clinton will be nominated as the Democratic Party’s Presidential candidate. What we don’t know is the kind of Democratic Party that will emerge. Specifically, how will the newly powerful leftist faction of the party influence the November elections?

The Democratic Party is undergoing significant structural change under pressures exerted by a new left wing that is committed to reforming the way we conduct politics and government. They are like traditional liberal/progressive Democrats in calling for tax and benefit reforms and for civil rights, but they are different in that they are equally committed to changing the methodology of choosing candidates. This faction is outraged by the way our politics have evolved.

When Sanders speaks of a revolution, he speaks to the deeper concern among thoughtful Americans that something has gone badly wrong with our politics. Ironically, the drama over procedure will take place in the most traditional, outdated, and inconsequential of political venues: a presidential nominating convention, an artifact, an appendix inside the body politic that becomes inflamed every four years.

Of late, the conventions have been boring affairs, hoopla and advertisements unworthy of serious attention. But this year’s conventions seem different, as if somehow we may actually witness historic events. I’ll be in the press gallery here in Philadelphia and hope to report to you on these matters before, during, and after the July conventions.

The platform might tell us about the current soul of the Democratic Party. During the 1948 Democratic convention at Philadelphia’s old Convention Hall, the party shed the influence of Southern bigotry on its politics by declaring that, if elected, its federal candidates would prosecute civil rights crimes, even in the South.

That was the year a symbolic faction of Southern Democrats walked out of the convention because of how the civil rights plank was worded. (Not coincidentally, it was the first year the conventions were televised and the last year there was a major platform fight. Party elders will do almost anything to avoid the appearance of disunity.)

We are cynical about platforms. Since before Lincoln was a lawyer, hundreds of thousands of words have gone into making and remaking party platforms. They are documents that say “wouldn’t it be nice if … .” In 1948, for example, the Republican and Democratic platforms had near-identical language promising legislation to guarantee women equal pay for equal work. I wouldn’t be surprised to read exactly the same words 68 years later.

The platforms are aspirational, not prescriptive. That said, any mention of reforming elections or regulating political advertising will mark a new direction, a shift in party philosophy.

I’m pretty sure the Democrats will word a plank calling for a Constitutional Amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision allowing unlimited campaign contributions. And there are other platform planks that might tell us how the party has responded to pressures from the left: policing and criminal justice, environmental protections, gender equality, military deployments, trading relationships – in fact any issue that you can think of will be addressed in the platform.

The most telling indication of the party’s 2016 incarnation will be revealed by Clinton during prime time in her acceptance speech at the end of the convention. To get the wording of that speech right, so that it ignites political activism in the party as a whole, she will negotiate with the new left wing. Those negotiations will be dramatic and consequential.

Based on the results of the May 26 primary election, our 2nd Pennsylvania Congressional District is represented by 15 people, eight men and seven women, 10 for Clinton, five for Sanders. (I hope to interview each of them before the opening gavel.) They will have an opportunity to vote for the platform as a whole.

What remains to be seen is whether they will offer alternative planks. In other words, are they up for a platform fight? Will Clinton’s decisions satisfy them or anger them?

Clinton’s majorities are weaker in other districts. She must do more than pay lip service to the left. If the Party is not enthusiastically united behind her, if she offends or seems tepid to the left, Democrats could lose to Donald Trump in November. So, even though we know who the nominee will be, we do not yet know the nature of the party she will represent.