[MUSIC PLAYING] The Miller Center
from the University of Virginia is
happily at the RNC-- the Republican National
Convention this year.
Miller Center's undertaken a two-year long project
called The First Year about the first years of presidents.
And what we're doing is producing policy papers as well
as historical papers, placing presidential first years
in historical context.
We take the best of academic research,
particularly on public policy, and the presidency
in particular, which is our best expertise,
and we bring it to the public and the policy makers.
I'm Larry Sabato.
I'm Director of the Center for Politics
at the University of Virginia.
This is my 19th national political convention.
I've been going to them in both parties since 1976.
And it has enriched my teaching and my scholarship.
When the framers created our Constitution,
they didn't intend to have political parties.
In fact, they really were worried
about political parties.
But what we've discovered is that parties
are a way of shaping ideas, and shaping a contest of ideas.
Ideally, they compromise.
They come together.
They arrive at a platform that they can agree on.
Usually, it works reasonably well.
Every now and then the system misfires.
They play a unifying role if they work properly
for the party.
So even though people come to the party convention upset--
perhaps their nominee didn't get the nomination--
the goal of these is to try to unify the party on the way
towards running in November in the general election.
And so what happens at the convention is,
the representatives of the people come.
And they essentially tell the party bosses
what's on their mind.
And it's fascinating, and you never
know what's going to happen.
Having scholars here from a wide variety
of fields of the University of Virginia
means the University of Virginia is better off.
Our students are better off.
It's important that we be here, not just flying
the flag for the University of Virginia,
but flying the flag for intellectual freedom.
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