MIAMI BEACH. Aug. 7--"Conventions are always dull," one veteran newspaper reporter said to me Tuesday night as we watched part of a session on TV. "But this is the dullest one yet."

Dullness was the one thing I did not expect. When I got off my plane in Miami Sunday. I found myself thrust into a boisterous demonstration of young and old Rockefeller supporters, armed with brassy instruments, who had come to the airport to greet the Massachusetts delegation. They screamed and played so loud that no one could hear the public address announcements about departures and arrivals.

But when you've seen one of Rockefeller's support demonstrations, you've seen them all. And when you've seen one Miami Beach hotel, you've seen them all. And when you've seen one GOP elephant, and one airline-stewardess-turned-Nixon-hostess, one real-life U. S. Senator close up, and one television camera you've seen--if not all--all that you care to see.

By Monday afternoon, with the convention officially only a few hours old, almost everyone seemed subconsciously to have realized that there wasn't enough of substance to do to fill the time, and the rest of the week was devoted to justifying one's presence.

The news media people justify their presence by creating the maximum amount of drama out of a situation which would be rather undramatic without their help. Every day they poll the delegates and report the fluctuations--a few votes up for one candidate here, a few down for another there, will Nixon win on the first ballot?

What do all these polls mean anyway, when CBS, AP and UPI can come up with different answers? After all, there is no sampling error--they are polling all 1333 delegates. And why the small shifts every day? It is because one day, a poor defenseless woman delegate is cornered by three aggressive Nixon aides and practically battered into switching her allegiance. By the next day, Rockefeller would have heard about this, and his men would go and batter her back. In between, she may tell AP she favors Nixon, UPI she favors Rockefeller, and CBS she's uncommitted.

The Elks

The delegates, meanwhile, justify their presence by talking to each other a good deal. This is not unlike what they would do at the local Elks or Rotary Club meeting, but here it is considered more important because they are all uncommitted or will be when their delegation is released from certain obligations, and they have the power to choose the next President of the United States (at political conventions, the candidate for such-and-such job is always referred to as so-and-so, the next such-and-such).

But despite the talk, it is a mistake to believe there is really much delegate interaction at this convention. Delegates talk primarily to other delegates they knew before they came, almost exclusively to delegates from their own state. The delegations are so spread apart in the various hotels along Miami Beach's Collins Ave, that it is almost impossible to see people from other delegations unless you are a candidate for President in which case you make a special effort.

Now what does a delegate talk about to other members of his own delegation? In general, they already agree on the issues, so they talk about when their obstreperous governor will release the delegation from its commitment to him as a favorite son. They may disagree on which candidate to support (this is relatively independent of positions on the issues), but they will probably conclude by saying any candidate will do in the end, and the GOP is going to win this year.

What you do not see is delegates from the North talking to delegates from the South, or black delegates talking to Southern segregationists, except perhaps on the most superficial social level. There is simply no institutionalized opportunity for interstate dialogue.

On the Beach

Meanwhile, I see delegates on the beach (there is plenty of time for me to be one the beach) saying to each other, "I guess I ought to go to so-and-so's rally. I haven't really done much since I've been here."

The people who make up the program for the Republican National Convention have trouble filling the time too. For both sessions on Monday and the one Tuesday night, they had to find a glittering cast of speakers who would bring honor to the Republican party without touching at all on the question of who should be nominated. To be sure, Barry Goldwater, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Mayor John V. Lindsay in their own ways indirectly supported their choices for the top spot on the ticket through what they said, but for the most part those first two days were uncontroversial, and insufferably boring. The television networks do well to cut into and out of speeches in a kind of on-the-spot editing (based on advanced copies of the text). Sitting in the Convention building, all I could do was walk out of the hall and hide in the room where reporters can get free roast beef sandwiches.

Most experienced reporters do not even attend the Convention sessions until the voting Wednesday night. There is little to be gained by attending anyway. I overhead one newspaperman saying to his editor Tuesday evening, "We ought to get a Sony portable television for the voting tomorrow night, because we can't see anything from our seats." To the extent that the Convention takes place in the Convention hall, television is bigger and better than the real thing. This disturbs me somewhat, because I didn't have to fly to Miami to watch television.