I apologize in advance for my cynicism. The bar exam is in two days, so I have an extra dose right now.

But, this all assumes that the political conventions matter, and that they're something more than Kabuki theater contrived for the consumption of the masses. I've been to a couple, and I'm not convinced that they are worth any blog coverage anymore, let alone major media coverage. It's one giant infomercial for each political party, and I'd rather have the resources devoted to covering these conventions spent on hard-hitting reporters who dig into the candidates' ideas and backgrounds to see what they're really made of.

Honestly, if there's any drama at all to these things, it will be because things did not go precisely as planned. If the President's speech runs 3 minutes long, or if Barack Obama bombs, then that will be a story. But if man doesn't bite dog -- if nothing out of the ordinary happens -- then these conventions will be nothing more than giant, splashy, alcohol-soaked, infomercials with little value added for the American consumer.

I laud my blogger colleagues, especially Patrick at Oxblog, for their idealism in covering these events. But c'mon... aren't we kidding ourselves here? Isn't there a real election to be covered that goes deeper than these conventions? Is anyone really going to vote based on what they see this week?

Phillip, I have heard this cynical take on political conventions many, many, many times before. It is not only dull, more importantly, it is not true. Political conventions give the voters insight into the ways in which the political parties wish to be perceived. Note I did not say that it tells the voters about what the parties are, but rather the way in which they wish to be perceived. This desired perception tells the voters something about the parties. It is an additional piece of information for voters to consider in making their political choices.

I also believe that most voters understand that the modern political convention is a form of theater; they understand that the parties are putting on a show with the idea of getting the most possible votes in the autumn. My point is that the show that they put on gives the voters information about the party, not precisely what the party is, but rather what the party thinks will appeal to the voters. Knowing this desired appeal gives a person valuable, though somewhat indirect, information about the party.

Perhaps an example will help to explain my point better. If a guy tells me "American voters are a bunch of stupid, red neck sheeple who are easily manipulated and incapable of thinking for themselves," then, even thought the person has explicitly told me nothing about himself, I understand perfectly well that this guy is an arrogant jerk who is so full of himself that any argument would be useless. In a similar way, the theater of a poltical convention can say alot about the reality of a party.

I just had a thought about blogs' effect today: what if they don't replace the regular press, but help shift its emphasis from surpassingly lousy punditry & process stories back to hard news, and from broadcast sources back to print?

It hasn't happened yet, but you can see why it would. We link to online versions of print newspapers, not Fox and CNN clips. And we're collectively pretty good at political commentary--better than almost anything on TV by a long shot as far as I'm concerned--but we're no so good at hard news reporting.

I'm not saying it's going to happen. It's just the first time the possibility occurred to me. And it would be a consumation devoutly to be wished.

My hope is that the blogosphere's love of policy debates will rub off more than its love of partisan point-scoring. I also hope that coverage of sweaters and haircuts is not long for this world.

The jury's still out on this one.

Today's political conventions lack the drama normally expected a few decades ago. I simply cannot pretend to be a “good citizen” and force myself to watch them except for the major speeches by John Kerry and President Bush. Other than that, I prefer viewing reruns of Gilligan's Island or the Beverly Hillbillies. The latter may even be more culturally important and add significantly to my intellectual development.

I expect Senator Kerry's speech to be muddled and pointless. He simply cannot offer a clear message when there is so much disagreement within the Democrat Party. There is no way that one can reconcile the views of Robert Rubin, Richard Holbrooke---and those of Howard Dean and Al Sharpton. Somebody will have to be immediately marginalized if Kerry wins the election. Who is being played for a sucker? Now that’s the real question that should dominate this convention?

Political conventions are a way the party and the candidate can get their messages and themes out to the voters on network tv in long, speech length chunks. Otherwise, all the average voter gets is soundbites and scare ads, and whatever snippets of policy Joe Reporter chooses to weave into his story.

So, no, conventions no longer matter as "hard news." But they are very important as the way to see the candidate, his party, his message without a reporter filtering the goings on every five minutes. To see the networks banish them to C-SPAN because no "hard news" is being made is a shame.

(As for blogs and the conventions? This just does not excite me very much,except as recognition. I'm afraid it's just ging to be a lot of "fisking", reports on parties, and Wonkette.

"[U]niversity of Missouri journalism
professor ..."

A University Professor unable to 'grok' a
new technology? Who would have thought that?

Aren't all University Professors, by definition,
revolutionaries on the cutting edge of their
respective fields?

It can't possibly be true that University
Professors are the most 'philosopically
conservative' individuals around?

... heavy Gore sigh inserted here ...

All I wanted was $3000 and I would have covered it and, as a bonus, I would have tried to burn as many bridges between blogs and the mainstream media as possible. I checked out a few posts from the bloggers covering the convention and provided a few suggestions here.