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So the result was that as one approached a political convention for most of the 19th century and for most of the 20th century until the 1960's, part of the drama was the fact that you didn't know ultimately who was going to be the nominee at the end of that convention week.

President Bush and his commanders announced early in the conflict that the Conventions applied.

The point is, the political reporters are the ones who no longer understand the ritual they are covering. They keep searching for political meanings in the tepid events when a convention is now essentially a human drama and only that.

A political convention is not a place where you can come away with any trace of faith in human nature.

When I was a teenager, I loved political conventions.

I thought this convention phenomenon was very flattering, but that's about the extent of it.

First of all, there's no mention of political parties in the Constitution, so you begin American history with not only no political conventions but also no parties.

Oftentimes during the period in which conventions really did business, you had situations where the delegates were divided and you would have ballot after ballot before there was a final nominee.

Conventions are unstated agreements within a community to abide by a single way of doing things - not because there is any inherent advantage to the choice, but because there is an advantage to everyone making the same choice.

Originally, the main purpose of the convention was to determine who the party would have as the presidential nominee and the vice-presidential nominee.