U.S. President Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the presidential race and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris on July 21. All hell broke loose shortly thereafter.

Why?

The Aug. 19-22 Democratic National Convention in Chicago was less than a month away. Biden had secured 3,905 of the 3,949 pledged delegates during the presidential primaries. These delegates were now free to support Harris or another candidate. Furthermore, there could theoretically be candidate nominations and direct challenges to Harris’s candidacy from the convention floor. Right in front of the TV cameras, radio microphones and every handheld device known to mankind.

It appears this scenario won’t materialize.

Harris quickly acquired the support of 3,083 delegates who were originally pledged to Biden. This, along with 8 pledged uncommitted delegates and 4 delegates pledged to a long shot candidate, Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips, gives her a grand total of 3,095. That’s well above what the Vice President needs to become the Democratic presidential candidate.

ABC News noted on July 23 that she’s not the presumptive Democratic nominee just yet. This is a term “used to describe a candidate who has won the support of the majority of delegates through primary elections and is thus expected to become the party’s nominee at the convention, presuming those delegates honor their pledged votes.” That’s correct. As long as these delegates follow up on their pledge to support her, any potential challenge from the remaining 854 delegates (and others) will be minimal at best.

The fact that Biden’s delegates are enthusiastically lining up behind Harris doesn’t say much about today’s Democratic Party. She’s a one-term California Senator of little importance who ended up with 0.76 percent of the vote when she ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries. Her tenure as Vice President hasn’t exactly been showered with glory, either – including the revolving door of staffers who’ve left her office.

In fairness, there were only 106 days left in the campaign when Biden resigned. The available options were few and far between. Biden’s endorsement of Harris, along with Hillary and Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and others was more than enough to move the political needle in her direction. It’s difficult to fathom that it would suddenly fall apart.

Still, would an open convention have been a mistake for the Democrats? I don’t think so.

It’s been a long time since there was an open national convention in U.S. politics. The last time it happened for both the Democrats and Republicans was the 1968 presidential election.

Richard Eyre, an author and political consultant, attended the Republican convention that nominated former Vice President and California Senator Richard Nixon over his preferred candidate, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. “1968 was…the year of voting reform that allowed potential draftees to vote for the first time,” he wrote in a Deseret News op-ed on July 22. “Both conventions marked a turning point where previously uninvolved groups such as youth and minorities became more involved in politics and voting.” He witnessed an intriguing political content on the Republican side as Nixon won the convention comfortably. Democratic Vice President Hubert Humphrey, on the other hand, secured his party’s nomination after President Lyndon Johnson stepped aside, former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated after winning the California primary and Vietnam War protestors disrupted the party convention in Chicago.

“From the 1968 Republican convention,” Eyre wrote, “we can conclude that the candidate with momentum (Nixon) will usually beat another candidate (Rockefeller) despite not doing as well in head-to-head polls with the opposite party’s nominee.” Conversely, the 1968 Democratic convention showed that “we can guess that the vice president of a stepping-down president will likely prevail as the party’s nominee, and we can take warning that the volatile situation of picking a candidate outside of normal party procedures can further polarize people and potentially lead to protests and violence.”

While no-one would want a repeat of the violence that happened during 1968 Chicago, imagine what could have potentially happened if an open national convention had materialized in 2024 Chicago.

Politicians could have thrown out their names as potential presidential candidates, either individually or a proposed ticket with a running mate. There could have been some interesting debates, discussions, alliances and maneuvering on the campaign floor. The political wheeling-and-dealing would have been enjoyable to watch on television. And if there had been a few tense moments, political analysts and commentators could have chalked it up to emotions running high and encouraged cooler heads to prevail.

Harris would have still been the favourite to win the Democratic presidential nomination. If she had been able to earn the support of ex-Biden delegates at the convention against several high-profile opponents, rather than receiving them by proxy or default, it could have created more legitimacy for her presidential campaign. And while she didn’t go through the 2024 presidential primaries, winning a majority of delegates in a mini-primary (of sorts) is far better than receiving them as a handout.

What if Harris had lost? It would have been unfortunate and embarrassing, but that’s part of the risk you take when you run for politics. Since she wasn’t pushing strongly for an open national convention next month, her preferred route to the nomination was clear.

Michael Taube, a longtime newspaper columnist and political commentator, was a speechwriter for former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper.