Party leaders are calling President Biden’s speech tonight a “keynote address.” This term used to have a very specific meaning at national party conventions, but today it is mostly just a label in the program.
Back when conventions were still chaotic, uncontrolled, and sometimes even deliberative affairs, a “keynote address” on the first night traditionally set the tone, with a rousing message of party unity and partisan attacks on the opposition. This task was similar to the State of the Union response that parties not in the White House still use: an opportunity for a politician (often a “rising star”) to make a statement with a hard-hitting speech guaranteed to draw cheers and standing ovations, and to overshadow (at least for a while) the battles over nominations and platforms at the beginning of the conventions.
Even as conventions became largely ceremonial (the last major party convention where the nomination was uncertain was in 1976), the keynote address often received considerable attention (e.g., Ann Richards’ 1988 Democratic keynote address, in which she lampooned fellow Texan George H.W. Bush, or Zell Miller’s 1992 Democratic keynote address, in which he introduced Bill Clinton as the rare politician who “feels your pain”). Over time, however, keynote addresses lost importance, and at some conventions they were simply referred to as keynote addresses, opening the prime-time sessions each night. The most famous is Barack Obama’s 2004 keynote address, which made him a national sensation and which he delivered on the second night of the convention in Boston.
The recent Republican National Convention in Milwaukee did not forego a “keynote address,” with the event on the first day marked by Trump’s first appearance since his near-assassination and his announcement that he would nominate JD Vance as his running mate. Joe Biden will certainly offer some partisan material in his “keynote address” tonight, but it will most likely be as retrospective as it is prospective, as he sums up his presidency and formally hands over the party leadership to Kamala Harris.
