These past several days I have been wasting my time watching live gavel-to-gavel coverage of the American political conventions, both online and on TV.
I use the words "waste of time" deliberately, because that's what it has been. In fact, if I was not such a big political junkie I wouldn't watch, because there isn't a lot of real news generated by these glorified political pep rallies. The Quebec election was far more interesting, despite my challenges figuring out what the leaders were saying in the debates.
It used to be American conventions were worth following. That was back in the days when there was actual news to cover - like, for instance, actually picking a candidate for president.
There was a time when the convention balloting meant something. But these days it's the primary season that does the job of knocking people out of the nomination race, turning conventions into coronations.
Candidates also got out of the business of announcing their vice-presidential running mates at the convention. The selection of Mitt Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan, was announced on a Saturday morning, long before the convention.
American conventions have even dropped the business of debating party platforms. Those are written up ahead of time, too, to avoid embarrassing floor fights and walkouts on TV.
These conventions are so stage-managed, party factions that may not be in support of the nominee are kept out of the spotlight as much as possible. Handling the discontented so they don't case any trouble is an art form in itself.
There were a number of delegates at the Republican convention in Tampa who were there supporting Ron Paul for President. The problem was these were "liberty" Republicans -small-government types who were not exactly in step with the social conservatism or other policies associated with the rest of the party.
Usually what the winning team will do is extend an invitation to the losing candidate for a prime spot speaking at the convention, as a show of respect and to help unify the party. They speak, get their moment in the spotlight so their supporters will feel less bad about themselves, and then are expected to get out of the way so the focus is on the nominee.
Mitt Romney's people invited Ron Paul to speak at the convention. However, there was a condition attached. Reportedly, Paul had to go on stage and completely endorse the Romney-Ryan ticket.
Thanks, anyway. What happened was that the "liberty" Republicans held their own rally at the Sun Dome in Tampa Sunday, just before the convention started, and that was where Paul gave his big speech. That is the risk parties run in trying to muzzle opposition forces at their conventions: the insurgents end up staging big rallies and get press for themselves anyway.
Even though he didn't speak at the convention, Paul hung around Tampa and did an interview on Fox News. He admitted he wasn't officially endorsing the ticket. A big help he was to Romney.
This shows you the difficulties parties face keeping their rank and file in line. Still, it didn't stop Republicans from trying to make it look like they were one big happy family on TV.
American conventions have been watered down so thoroughly they are basically big infomercials for the political parties. It's all scripted and choreographed. In fact, political pros usually judge the success or failure of conventions based on how well the party controls the message and stays on time.
It's to the point where conventions won't even put the presidential roll call in prime time anymore. Instead, they want to load it up with speech after speech, rolling out their rising political stars before a national audience.
It's an effective strategy: it was the keynote speech by Barack Obama back at the Democratic convention in 2004, broadcast on TV, that catapulted him into prominence.
But again, that convention was more about promoting the Democrats and promoting Obama, who was running for the senate at the time. The proceedings had less to do with delegates making decisions and more to do with getting their leaders known to the public and getting their message and talking points out there.
The parties' goal is to load up their biggest speakers - the presidential nominee, the VP nominee, the keynote speaker, the nominee's spouse, maybe the outgoing or former president, and anyone else important, into one hour of prime time that CBS, ABC and NBC usually devotes to live coverage of the conventions.
But this year the networks threw a wrench into that plan by declaring they would skip coverage of Monday night proceedings for both parties. The networks would show their usual entertainment instead, because audiences were more interested in watching that anyway.
That got Republicans upset, because they had booked Romney's wife, Ann Romney, to be the big speaker in prime time last Monday, thinking the networks would cover it live. A golden opportunity to promote the Romneys was about to go down the drain.
As it turned out, Tropical Storm Isaac's brush with Florida Monday forced Republican officials to cancel the first day of their proceedings. It was a stroke of luck.
The party moved Mrs. Romney's speech to prime time Tuesday, so that she would be able to introduce her husband to the entire country on live TV. Her speech got rave reviews and was credited with helping the ticket in November.
Such is the drama at U.S. political conventions these days. It's all about how well you did on TV.
