Bloggers on CNN?. This has to be pure desperation. After campaign reforms of the 1960’s when do-gooders had to “do away” with decision-making in cigar-smoke-filled rooms there has been no need for these conventions, except to get conventioneers drunk and to support the local hookers. By getting rid of the cigar-smoke-filled rooms we’ve instead adopted a primary system that favors faddish or over-financed candidates who play well to the media. I can guarantee you that in this day and age Abraham Lincoln would have zero chance of becoming President. Roosevelt would probably be out too. So this is somehow an improvement? Knowing that these conventions are stupid and meaningless, the networks are now looking to gimmicks. Smart money would skip televising the conventions and make some real dough broadcasting Simpsons reruns. Instead we are now going to be treated to the opinions of a few choice bloggers. In other words CNN is going to essentially take material and run it with no compensation to the blogger. The elite bloggers are thrilled. Now we’ll see a blog race to see who gets mentioned the most. This should be funny, at least for a couple of minutes. Meanwhile I’m accumulating TV shows on the PVR. As for the conventions, I think I know who wins! So exactly what’s the point?
“BlogWatch” — CNN.com’s up-to-the-moment review of numerous Web logs covering the convention marks a first for convention coverage using Technorati, the leading monitor of blogs. CNN offers its own convention blog on CNN.com with updates from Candy Crowley on the platform and from CNN anchors, analysts and correspondents, including James Carville and Tucker Carlson, both of Crossfire
Ugh!
Instead of one big convention, there should be several smaller conventions in different cities. All of the big city convention centers are wired with telecommunications hardware galore, so there could be connectivity across the USA. The big shots all have jets, which could have them in four or five cities in a couple of days. Instead, we have all the important players in one location and a security problem on top of that. This is like creating a huge target, which doesn’t move. The Dems will all be in Boston getting frisked, searched and questioned for a week. Sounds like a bunch of fun, while Homeland Security starts announcing all the risks. The hookers may be the safest game in town! The media will all be there with security consultants outlining the challenges and providing live feeds for the people at home. All politics is local, until the convention starts. If something bad does happen, everyone in government will say why did we do it this way when we knew there were security problems. We’ll do it differently the next time and still won’t get it right! We can’t resist the need to gather together someplace else and we can’t seem to get together where we are.
I haven’t considered this topic at all. John, as usual, your curmudgeonly perception startles my grey cells into activity!
I guess my 1st response is what I would try NOT to do. In 40+ years of political/community activism, I’ve learned that coming down on the side of compromising democracy is a mistake. Partisanship, unity, consensus are great ideals which also can conceal a lot of opportunistic crap!
My wife and I are cyber-hermits, John. We come home from work and 255 TV channels and the Internet are our connection to the rest of the world. Conventions and caucuses served some purpose in the days of radio and trains — and before. But, spending time with the uninformed who ONLY watch network TV [and maybe not even Network news] and read the local paper [beyond the sports and obits], trying to convince them to consider the potential of critical examination of political alternatives in the 1950’s version of a meetup — may as well be left to the hucksters producing TV commercials running on NASCAR and wrestling channels.
The rest of us — who may someday be a majority — should have attention paid to how we can participate in our own time, in our own way. That means, mercy, some of our politicians may have to create legitimate platforms and position papers. It also means the [gasp] gamers who live and die for G4 TV will comprise an eventual voting bloc along with the really lame, the script kiddies. Still, let’s give it a try.
Bringing political processes into the same expanding universe as communications is certainly going to offer a better chance than putting, say, the department of Homeland Security in charge of polling places.