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NPR: Before FDR, Presidential Candidates Never Accepted Their Nominations at the Convention

John McDonough, on NPR (May 26, 2004):

Until Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first nomination as the Democratic candidate in 1932, no candidates attended their parties' conventions, and they waited weeks before getting the news and accepting. So John Kerry's consideration of the idea of not formally accept his party's nomination at the convention would be a throwback, not a precedent.

Click here to hear the report.