Are these conventions still necessary?

Primaries have made conventions superfluous when it comes to picking the parties' presidential nominees. And Kerry is floating trial baloons about not accepting the nomination until a month after the 2004 convention in order to bypass campaign finance regulations.

Since we already know who the nominee is, and since that nominee may not even accept the nomination at the convention, why not just cancel the convention? The good people of Boston would be spared traffic headaches and various problems related to security,
Kerry and the VP nominee could hold a big rally on the national mall over Labor Day weekend and give their acceptance speeches there.

Have you thought about Chicago?

Hold it online . . . use VR to facilitate participation, put Kerry in front of a blue screen to "acknowledge" the nomination . . . from Fenway, on the mound . . . and, when my brother-in-law gets bored, he can just morph Kerry into Pandora Peaks; oughta hold his attention.

The people who live there (and they ought to know) have a point however: my own experience has been that getting around Boston on a good day is like playing six-deck 21. With a good chunk of the T out of commission, I'm not even sure I could give people from here who are going any good advice. For a Party predicated on representing "ordinary working people" we're going to make life really suck for a four-day weekend in July for a whole lot of "ordinary working people" (who I'm quite sure had nothing to do with offering to host the Convention in the first place) in the country's sixth-largest metropolitan area. I never really grasped the downside of conventions in general until I went to Las Vegas for Comdex: techies choke out all-other-business, don't generally gamble much, and when we do, are for the most part lousy tippers; basically life sucks for most of the casino staff that week.

Maybe for 2008 we should let the guys from Burning Man run the Convention and hold it in the middle of Nevada's Black Rock Desert? ;)

Tim Z: While I'm thinking about it, I might also point out that I think Primaries are faddish; a number of states (especially those with Rub Governors) eliminated them entirely this year, and four years ago a court ruling established that open primaries violate the free-association rights of political parties.

Taking it a step further, however, in our Party the rules explicitly forbid secret ballots for all other business, so why should we do the most important thing we take care of in house (selecting our candidates for general elections) in that manner?

If it were up to me it would be closed caucuses in every state to determine Presidential nominating delegates, and all other offices' nominees would be selected at their respective State Conventions.

The Monkey works in Boston and his commute goes through the Fleet Center.

This is going to suck, big time. I just started a new job and I'm sure they're going to love having me be two hours or so late every day for a week because of this. Can't drive in because the roads are closed.

Why bother even having this thing? Save the money, and use it to buy ads in battleground states.

If security is that much of a concern, I say cancel it and blame it on Bush losing the war on terror.

Some people are bitching about it. Other people are going to make ridiculous amounts of money off housing all these people. But not everyone cares about the convention. A lot of people just need to get to work. It's going to be one hell of a cluster-f downtown. Traffic is bad enough all over the area. Me, I take the commuter rail. So I'm just going to sit back, relax and smile at the chaos. It'll be like college move in day, Marathon Monday, St. Patrick's Day and a Yanks-Sox game rolled all into one.

On another note, why have it in Boston, MA. Wouldn't the DNC gain a little by having it in a swing state (Philly, PA maybe) or does it have little effect.

If you are going to screw up traffic for hundreds of thousands of commuters, do it in a state you are sure to win, not a swing state. Otherwise, "stuck in traffic" becomes the hanging chad of the election.

do it in a state you are sure to win, not a swing state

Ha ha, good point.

Damn Boston representin' on Burnt Orange

CyberSpace is awesome

Seriously i feel bad for ya'll, hopefully the attention to your city will help your economy in the long run.

If the convention were in Houston, no one would even notice the road closures, or at least they wouldn't realize they were convention-related. I believe the city routinely closes one-third of the freeways each week, whether repairs are needed or not, rotating the closures to be certain they inconvenience all Houstonians equally.

'Scuse me; gotta go face my midday commute... fortunately, I do most of my work from home, but today is an exception. Tell those Boston residents they're a buncha wimps if they can't sit in traffic jams for hours! If you can't take the heat, get off the freeway!

Ah, commuting . . . I remember doing that. Now I ride fifteen easy minutes on my bike from my house to my office at OU . . . one reason I'll never take a job at Rice.