Well, the time has come once again for the quadrennial bloodletting / lovefest known as the Party Conventions. Red and blue, Republican or Democrat, elephants and donkeys and lions and tigers and bears, oh my!... It's as if the Brady kids all got together and said "Let's have a circus!!! Jan can make the costumes, Marcia can be Hillary and we can get the strange old man down the street to be McCain!" Okay, maybe it's not that bad, but the conventions have mutated from an event where serious politicking was done, news was made, and qualified, serious candidates were put front and center for the country to judge - to a coronation of the prom king and queen. And who gets the nomination ? The one who looks best on TV, the one with the most money, the one who survives the marathon - it doesn't even have to be the one with the most votes. It makes any serious citizen wonder if this is actually the best way to select a president. The smoke-filled rooms of the past at least got the electorate two people who were actually qualified to be President of the United States. But, the primaries have run their course and the chance to comment on the process is past for this cycle - now it's Convention Time!

The Democrats are up first, and if nothing else, you have to say they've bucked their own tradition of nominating a wooden post (seriously - Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, Mondale not a spark of charisma since Kennedy - Clinton was an entertaining breath of fresh air). Well, they have a candidate with serious star-power this time. No one really knows at this point whether it was skill or luck that got Obama to the top, but you have to step back and wonder how fate abandoned Hillary. (...and Bill). No one can imagine too many surprises at the Democratic Convention. It will have to close with unity, pizazz, and Obama at least appearing to fill out the suit. Oh, and a Veep that is capable of giving him good advice at that first 3AM moment. A positive going for him is that he has the playbook of the last candidate for President with a razor-thin resume - Jack Kennedy - and Jack won against an opponent that had bigger guns than McCain - Richard Nixon.

The Republicans follow, and as tradition holds - even after a little bit of excitement in the beginning - the nomination is going to the next guy in line. Now technically, John McCain was the next guy in line in 2000, but GWB got shoved to the front as a legacy, and now that he's had his turn, it's time for McCain. John McCain has the opposite challenge as Obama. His resume is thick to the point of bursting, but he's a little bland - oh, and old. Except to his 95 year-old mother. Which speaks well of his genetic mix... Then there's the question of his temperament... You can't help but look at him and think of "Crazy Uncle John" - you know - Dad's older brother who smells a little funny and you see once a year at the family picnic "C'mon over Kiddo - I was in the war! ... Pull my finger!" . Can't say we're going to see any drama there either, though the McCain Veep will be as important. It would be reassuring if he had someone a bit younger with the same fat resume - just in case the genetics don't hold. McCain has the added burden of asking for votes in the same way he characterizes America's oil situation. He needs to get them from people who don't like him very much - the conservative base. We can't count him out though, a year ago he was pronounced politically dead, and yet here he is... 

Finding Convention coverage will be a challenge this year - most networks are only giving it an hour in primetime, and CBS is skipping Monday altogether. More in depth coverage will be provided by the news channels and C-SPAN. An excellent resource for anyone with XM is POTUS08 Channel 130 which is promising gavel to gavel coverage and analysis. And in making a foray out of analysis and editorial, TTPPBlog will  be doing a daily round-up of the interesting and important Convention news  presented straight and non-partisan. Articles may appear on issues and positions staked out at the conventions, but they will be posted separately. For those of you who want a brief summary with no spin this is the place.

Looking forward to producing actual journalism over the next two weeks - join us early and often. And if you haven't yet - register to vote. If you don't participate, you lose the right to complain...

RLB