WATCHING THE SHOW: Are conventions still relevant?

[No Elephants]

Aug 27, 5:04 AM EDT

WATCHING THE SHOW: Are conventions still relevant?

By MICHAEL ORESKES
Associated Press


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Once, they were the place where the parties actually picked their candidates for president and vice president. But for at least 30 years now, conventions have been the place where the nominees, long since selected, try to bind up their party's internal wounds and reach out over the heads of the delegates to woo the less partisan voters who usually decide the election.

<snip>

The Senate, in fact, voted, 95 to 4 a few weeks ago to cut off in the future the $18.3 million subsidy each party gets to stage (that is the word - "stage") the conventions. Homeland Security also gives out $50-milllion to assure security at each convention.


<snip>

That $18.3 million is one of the last remnants of a public finance system that was meant to curb money in politics. The IRS collects $3 from every taxpayer who ticks the box for the presidential campaign fund. But most of the money, some $235 million, is sitting in the government coffers because neither Romney nor Obama is taking their share, preferring instead to go out and raise and spend even more on their own.

<snip>

Conventions weren't part of the original plan. The founders by and large hated parties (tellingly, they called them factions) and probably would have hated partisan conventions, which were invented only after they were gone.

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Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif., saw this coming. He has served as parliamentarian of the last four GOP conventions. He recalls that in 2008 a Katrina-class hurricane was barreling for the Gulf Coast as the convention convened in Minnesota. His staff got together and figured out a way to compress all the legally required business of the convention - rules, the platform and the nomination of the ticket - into a few hours so delegates from the Gulf Coast, including the governors of Louisiana and Mississippi, could rush home to respond to the looming disaster.

much more at

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CVN_ESSAY_THE_PIVOT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-08-27-05-04-33

Interesting article.


In 2008, I was more excited about Obama than I have been about any candidate in my voting years--and I still found the Democratic convention embarrassingly cringe-worthy, with the columns and the rest of the rehearsed bread and circus--minus the bread for the hungry. The Republican convention, I've never even bothered to watch.

There are so many greater needs for the many millions that the taxpayers and each Party spend on these painfully staged and produced outbursts of "spontaneous" adoration of the nominee.