Why Do We Still Have Conventions?

Mike Murphy: “Political conventions are over. Once, they meant something. I’d leap into the most terrifying of time machines to attend an old school political convention with armies of local pols battling it out under a thick cloud of blue tobacco smoke in a stuffy convention hall, while the string-pulling bosses cut pragmatic deals over whiskey and judicial appointments in lavish hotel suites. Those conventions had drama because outcomes were unknown and stakes were high. Today, delegates are bound through the application of TV ad ratings points, not machine deals. They sit in the convention hall like the background actors in a TV show, milling about to the director’s orders, wearing costumes and denied a single line. It seems a shabby ending to a great tradition. It’s time for a mercy killing.”