I would personally like to thank you for having that post be *just* long enough that the other post is completely invisible.

As for the conventions...why do they televise those things in the first place?

How about a May-Treanor/Walsh write-in vote?

I would personally like to thank you

I kinda thought you might. ;-)

...why do they televise those things in the first place?

Good question. An equally good one is how do the networks find advertisers? It would seem that a company is taking a big chance sponsoring such a partisan event. Granted, most will probably advertise during both conventions, and it's likely that the opposing party faithful won't watch the other party's convention coverage, so maybe it's not a big deal.

How about a May-Treanor/Walsh write-in vote?

What are they running for? Oh, what a stupid question. Never mind; they've got my vote!

Eric, it never would occur to me that it ever would occur to you to ask what they were running "for" ... just as long as they were running.

:-)

On another, serious note ... I'm surprised that the question asking why "those things" were televised in the first place has come up ... are we really that young, or are our memories so short that we have forgotten when political conventions were genuine, unpredictable news events ... rather than carefully, crafted and controlled political ads?

We have the "Firefly" DVDs, and all the Battlestar Galactica DVDs too. If needed, husband will buy the complete Star Trek Voyager (seasons 1-7) if that's what it takes to get him through to next spring.

Lots of tall, strong women (though none are playing volleyball).

...rather than carefully, crafted and controlled political ads?

I suppose that the networks have to cover them, and must do so without receiving compensation from the sponsoring political parties, to fulfill their duties to the general public. From that perspective, they've got my permission to check off that little box and move on to something more worthwhile, like the next season of "The Office," where the politics are at least entertaining.

Deborah, you had me at "Firefly." There are a lot of things harder to contemplate than repeated viewings of those gems.

I can never tell how tall the women are on TV, though, because they're generally not allowed to be taller than the leading men, and a lot of them are pretty height-challenged (Tom Cruise comes to mind).

Maybe I'm displaying my youth, but honestly no, I don't recall any conventions that were actually worthwhile political events rather than a platform for the chest thumping of pompous windbags and the announcement of something we've all known for at least a few weeks (gosh I wish it was just a few weeks rather than what feels like a few years).

(For those who are wondering - I won't suppose there are those who care - the first election I really remember paying any attention to at all was in '88.)

But all that aside, it's probably about time for people to start campaigning for the 2012 elections, right?

Nationally, NBC has a pre-season football game this Thursday night (Jacksonville at Washington), and the regular season NFL opener between the Giants and Redskins next Thursday. Both games are starting early, so that they are supposed to be over by the time Obama and McCain give their convention speeches, but it will be interesting to see what the network does if either game goes over the allotted three-hour time slot (my suspicion would be cut from the pre-season game to Obama and blow off McCain to show the end of the regular season contest, which they could justify by saying the latter counts in the standings while the former doesn't. However, if the convention dates had been reversed...)