Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

Rather than infomercials -- er, CONVENTIONS, David Frum has A BRILLIANT IDEA:

Party conventions could then discover a new purpose as showcases for emerging talent. With the candidate speaking in front of Mount Rushmore or wherever, the party's next generation and second-tier figures could regain the convention microphones that have been progressively removed from them over the past three decades....

Instead of formal oratory, there could be question-and-answer sessions with every one of the party's incumbent governors and panel discussions with congressional leaders. Instead of wandering around downtown Denver or Minneapolis with little to do, delegates could be offered opportunities to join themselves in moderated discussions or to hear serious briefings by invited policy experts. Today's delegates are not the delegates of the 1920s or 1950s: They are hard-working, highly educated community leaders, and they want a more important role than that of extra hands for somebody else's extravaganza production. Of course they enjoy the drinks and the fun. But they also want to engage in purposeful, public-spirited activities in the daylight hours before the show begins -- and the withdrawal of the cameras from the convention creates the perfect opportunity to offer them purposeful activities.

The tightly orchestrated debate over the platform -- always carefully stage-managed lest well-organized activists embarrass the candidate -- could be dispensed with altogether, replaced by genuine substantive discussions undistorted by the need to arrive at some anodyne consensus. Delegates could hear discussions led by policy experts about the issues the next administration will face.

In short, C-SPAN SEMINARS. Believe us, Dave, we have TOO MUCH of those. This would guarantee the few fragments of the infomercials would vanish from network TV altogether -- and from the public consciousness too (as our pundit more-or-less admits).

Now I have an idea, though I'm not paid six-digits-plus to pundit about it: Instead of conventions rewrite the rules so that when one candidate receives a majority of the national primary vote, the candidate automatically wins; no need for lots of buttinskys. It would be formalized at a meeting in Washington, much like a centralized Electoral College, with each state's governor and Congresspoops there to represent it. If no candidate gets a majority THEN the meeting would decide the winner, who'd be chosen behind closed doors and by the bigwigs whatever the format -- although there needn't be anything wrong with a plurality winner. My suggestion might play tricks with primary scheduling, but then any system would, and we have enough such tricks as is.

It is certainly true we shouldn't miss conventions; whether the nation could stand thirty-nine televised ballots nowadays is questionable. But as even Mr. Frum acknowledges why bother with something that costs zillions and whose sole purpose is to create downtown frozen zones?

P. S. Our brilliant pundit wases nostalgic over front-porch campaigns. Can you imagine what the news hacks would think? "HE'S AVOIDING THE PUBLIC!!!!!" Of course they'd be so bored they might stop covering the campaign, a good thing -- unless they concentrated even more on trivia, a real possibility.