Chip Taylor

Revitalizing conventions

I wasn't going to post anything about the conventions other than my initial snarky comment that I wasn't going to watch them.

But then a funny thing happened on my way to ignoring the conventions. Mark Daniels had some cogent comments on that post, which stimulated a follow up post. In the comments to that post, Mark expands on his original comment, to which I can add nothing, except that I agree 100 percent.

So anyway, this morning I run across Joshua Spivak's column on Tech Central Station. He recaps how nominating conventions got to be such mind-numbingly dull spectacles and suggests how the convention bloggers might (just might) be able to help revitalize them.

So how can bloggers help revitalize this dusty, somewhat disreputable, relic? One way would be by giving voters a more candid look at the internal rumblings that the parties try to hide. There are always interesting stories occurring about the underpinnings of the parties. The conventions, where all the different branches of the party gather together and try to peacefully coexist, is a perfect spot to expose these fault lines. While newspapers and TV reporters do write these stories, the more interactive nature of the internet may be a more appropriate forum to expose potential schisms. Blogs with their avowed bias proudly showing -- just like the newspapers of the original conventions -- may be able to better highlight party trends than the "neutral" newspapers.

That would be interesting. I'm still not watching. I might read about them, though.