Regular readers know that I stay away from politics on both The Grandstander and Facebook, but this is pretty non-partisan, so here goes.
News Item: Due to the approach of Hurricane Isaac, the Republicans have canceled the first day of their National Convention, scheduled to begin in Tampa on Monday. This underscores the fact that for the last thirty or so years the National Conventions of both parties have become anachronisms and fairly pointless. I believe the last time that a Party's nominee was actually decided at a convention was in 1976 when the GOP chose Jerry Ford over Ronald Reagan. Ever since then, each party's nominee has already been determined via the state primaries and caucuses that took place over several months earlier in the year. Whether this is good or bad, is another debate.
So, it seems to me that a lot of time and money could be saved if each party could convince the television networks to turn over two Thursdays, one for each party, in late August every four years and give them three hours of prime time for the Prez and Veep nominees to make their speeches to the waiting nation. The only people who lose in such a situation are the hotels and restaurants of the host cities.
Make sense to you?
I think they are pointless. By this point everyone already knows who will be the nominee. Why waste the money on this political grandstanding - it would be much better spent to help those in need.
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