Serious cash is changing hands amid the pomp and pageantry of the party conventions. Convention halls and party space, balloons and fireworks, free food and gift bags all cost money and lots of it. Campaign finance laws have tried to close loopholes in the electoral system, but according to a report from the nonprofit group Public Citizen (pdf), “[c]orporations and their lobbyists see the national nominating conventions as ideal opportunities to buy access and influence with the presidential campaigns, lawmakers, and party leaders.”

Corporations contribute millions of dollars in “soft money” to both parties by donating to each convention’s host committees. In 2004, Public Citizen reports that private donors gave $57 million to the Democratic convention and $86 million to the Republican convention. “As of August 2008,” Public Citizen reports, “173 organizational donors to the host committees have been identified, and all but two are corporations.” This year, the International Herald Tribune estimates that private donors will give some $112 million to the conventions.

Each host committee offers donor circles for corporations to buy into, ranging from $50,000 to $5 million, with perks associated with each level. Donors who give $1 million to the 2008 RNC host committee—a group that includes US Bank, Xcel, and Medtronic—are promised a private reception with Minnesota politicians Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Sen. Norm Coleman, and the mayors of St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Bloomington.

Influence is also bought by hosting exclusive parties and receptions for politicians. One example is AT&T’s celebration for conservative “Blue Dog” democrats, which according to Public Citizen, “appears to violate the letter of the ethics rules.” Salon.com reporter Glenn Greenwald showed up outside the party and was quickly ushered away by the police. Greenwald writes: “Amazingly, not a single one of the 25-30 people we tried to interview would speak to us about who they were, how they got invited, what the party's purpose was, why they were attending, etc.” A video of Greenwald’s efforts is posted below.

Trying to curb the moneyed influence of the conventions, new laws have created confusing inconsistencies in 2008. At the highly publicized Kanye West show during the Democratic National Convention, the Sunlight Foundation’s Political Party Time Blog reports that House members were forced to pay a $90 entry fee. Senate members, who weren’t bound by the same ethics laws, got in for free. Reporters from Sunlight Foundation, predictably, were denied access all together.

Image by Steve Bott, licensed under Creative Commons.

Here’s what the Republicans have mustered this week: A DNC counteroffensive that mocked the Democrats' stage and blather about how 80,000-plus people showing up for a political speech is somehow a bad thing. And now there’s this: A seemingly last-minute, hail-mary VP pick driven by the now-stale strategy of luring disgruntled Hillary supporters.

Word broke this morning that Sarah Palin is McCain’s pick. The first-term Alaska governor is so unknown on the national stage that CNN’s breaking coverage of the nod was basically a rewrite of the governor’s web bio.

She’s got ethics reform on her short resume (and an ethics investigation) and some green credentials. But most importantly and most obviously she is a woman. Why else would McCain throw his experience mantra under the bus? To paraphrase Josh Marshall, If you’re a 72-year-old cancer survivor running for president you better pick someone who’s ready to step up, especially if your entire campaign is based on your EXPERIENCE.

Here in Minnesota, we’re all buzzing about what doomed Governor Tim Pawlenty’s chances. (Our office pool was a boring failure, since everyone picked Pawlenty.) He was the frontrunner in chatter yesterday, had canceled his week’s schedule, and then suddenly broke the Republicans’ tightly controlled message management and—not sounding too happy about things—told a local radio station that it was a “fair assumption” that he wasn’t going to be the veep. That leaves the impression of a last-minute decision, one forced by the unexpected strength of Obama’s performance last night.

While Democrats—egged on by Republican teasing—stewed in doubts about Obama not hitting back hard enough, or Obama leaving himself open for sucker punches by going on vacation, or their ranks not being unified, the Obama team clearly had a plan. They let McCain’s people play in the mud for the whole of August. And in one fell swoop of a speech, dispatched with each and every tactic in the Pubs’ playbook. The speech was smart, and, given the Republican response to it last night, it was clearly unexpected.

Now, it’s not even September, and the McCain team has been forced to chisel away at their best card—the experience card. It’s time Democrats—particularly the pundits out chattering to the media—stop letting Republicans get their goat and leave the self-doubt thing behind.

Image by  Ryan McFarland , licensed under  Creative Commons .

With the Clinton-Obama rift story finally being put to rest, pundits are turning to the supposed rift between Obama and the Jews as potential fertile ground for controversy. The story isn’t new: Back in May, the New York Times reported on the blatant falsehoods believed by some Jewish retirees in Florida. And Republican strategists may see an opportunity to grab some Jewish swing votes, with Joseph Lieberman’s name being kicked around as a possible Republican VP nominee and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani trying to attack Obama on his Israel policy.

In spite of the media coverage, the story of the Obama-Jewish rift is just a bunch of schlock according to Joshua Keating writing for the Foreign Policy blog. Keating cites Gallup polls showing Obama clearly beating McCain among Jewish voters as proof that the storyline just doesn’t hold up. “The idea that Jews are disproportionately suspicious of Obama has a lot to do with the stereotype that they vote solely on which candidate is more hawkish on Middle East policy,” Keating writes, and that stereotype simply isn’t true. 

Not taking any chances, Jewish groups have begun aggressively courting Jewish voters for Obama. Writing for the Politico, Ben Smith reports on JewsVote.org, a new website launched during the Democratic National Convention aiming to convince more Jews to vote for Barack Obama. Mik Moore, one of the group's founders told the Politico "[t]he goal of this website is to provide a series of powerful tools to Jews who are supportive of Obama and dismayed at the rumors that have made a lot of Jews question whether or not they can support Obama in the election."

Moore gained some attention in 2004 with “Operation Bubbe,” an effort to convince Jewish grandmothers (or Bubbies in Yiddish) to vote for John Kerry. Similarly, a website called “Bubbies for Obama” has popped up this year, enlisting more Jewish grandmothers to get out the vote for the Democrats.

For a more humorous take on the subject, be sure to watch Wyatt Cenac of the Daily Show try and get to the bottom of controversy:

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here. 

After days, weeks, months of fretting about how to keep Bill Clinton’s mouth shut, the former president showed last night what he can do when unleashed.

Bill has been credited with sinking his wife’s campaign and then, fueled by bitterness, turning his sights to Obama. None of that was on stage last night. He not only delivered the most clear-eyed analysis of why Americans should vote with the Democratic Party, he explained why they should vote for Barack Obama (a distinction not made by his wife a day earlier). Beyond that, he showed why he can be a campaign asset: He’s a scary smart diagnostician of the country’s woes and what’s needed to heal them.

Andrew Sullivan, who’s more than upfront about his “personal disdain” for the man, had this to say about the speech:

Tonight, I think, was one of the best speeches he has ever given. It was a direct, personal and powerful endorsement of Obama. But much, much more than that: it was a statesman-like assessment of where this country is and how desperately it needs a real change toward reform and retrenchment at home and restoration of diplomacy, wisdom and prudence abroad.

It was a night of redemption for more than just Bill, though. Senator John Kerry, the Dems’ 2004 loser, rallied to his moment.

There’s a lot of blogster buzz about how the networks cut away from Kerry’s speech to, as TPM’s Josh Marshall puts it, “feature their yakkers.” (One word: C-SPAN.) Kerry’s speech is indeed worth revisiting for anyone who missed it. It got off to a wobbly start, but eventually took off. The highlight is a Jon Stewartesque debate Kerry recreates between Senator McCain and Candidate McCain.

I have known and been friends with John McCain for almost 22 years. But every day now I learn something new about candidate McCain. To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician, I say, let’s compare Senator McCain to candidate McCain.

Candidate McCain now supports the very wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once called irresponsible. Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain’s own climate change bill. Candidate McCain says he would vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote. Are you kidding me folks? Talk about being for it before you’re against it.

Let me tell you, before he ever debates Barack Obama, John McCain should finish the debate with himself. And what’s more, Senator McCain, who once railed against the smears of Karl Rove when he was the target, has morphed into candidate McCain who is using the same “Rove” tactics, the same “Rove” staff, the same old politics of fear and smear. Well, not this year, not this time. The Rove-McCain tactics are old and outworn, and America will reject them in 2008.

Watch Kerry's speech:

And Clinton's, too:

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here. 

It isn’t surprising that activists and protesters are speaking out against “the police state” in the streets of Denver. No matter what was going to happen this week at the DNC, there would have been someone out there condemning the actions of the police.

There is real cause for concern, though. Beyond the questionable constitutional legality of the protest zones in the first place, which keep protesters out of view of their intended targets, police working the DNC have so far been involved in several dubious incidents well documented by independent media outlets such as Democracy Now!, the American News Project, and Colorado Indymedia. The Rocky Mountain News also has a provocative video that documented police reaction to a conservative Christian-led protest and counterprotesters. 

Despite some self-declared right-wing bloggers who disagree with the protesters’ message and express outright glee at police actions, it should not matter whether you agree with what they have to say. Those who characterize anyone remotely progressive as “moonbats” often have complaints about how their own movement’s freedom of speech is suppressed. If they are as concerned as they appear to be about their own First Amendment rights, shouldn’t they also be concerned about the First Amendment rights of all citizens, including their far-left counterparts?

It’s one thing to disagree with a message, and it’s another to champion the suppression of that message. I mean, come on, there are reports of no badge identification displayed by some of the arresting officers? Police forcing even those who stood on the sidewalks, and not the city streets—many of whom were not protesting—to remain surrounded by police in riot gear for two hours? And throwing down and hitting a Code Pink protester with a baton when she asked an officer why he made an arrest?

These aren't things anyone should champion, no matter their political allegiance.

Image by  zenobia_joy, licensed under  Creative Commons.

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here. 

In last night’s speech at the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Clinton said: “Those are the reasons I ran for president. Those are the reasons I support Barack Obama for president.” 

Steve Kornacki  reports for the New York Observer that the line was supposed to read: “Those are the reasons I ran for president. Those are the reasons I support Barack Obama. And those are the reasons you should too.”

Two commenters on the New York Observer site were not amused. One anonymous poster said, “Christ, people—she told people like twenty times to vote for Barack Obama! Stop continuing this ridiculous rift story.”

What do you think? Is it time to move beyond the subversive Clinton story? Or are you waiting for Bill’s speech tonight?

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

Throughout the Obama campaign, Michelle has been skewered for her remarks on the stump, but her speech at Monday night's DNC kickoff got decent, even good, reviews across the political spectrum. Here’s a roundup of quick takes on the potential First Lady’s delivery:

Here's Jim Geraghty for the National Review:

In one sense, Michelle's speech did what it needed to tonight, and that is... little or no harm. It was a serving of mashed potatoes from her, but considering her comments that have generated headlines so far in this campaign, generic happy talk about working hard and dreaming bigger and aiming higher will be a pleasant surprise.

The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan raved:

There was plenty I didn't like about this night, as you can tell if you scroll down. But it succeeded in the most important task. Michelle did it. She more than did it. She struck fear in the GOP tonight. Their lies about the Obamas will fail. As they should.

Newsweek tapped former Republican speechwriter, Michael Gerson, and former Democratic speechwriter Michael Waldman for their takes, and both were impressed. Says Gerson:

Michelle Obama [was] impressive—confident, fluent, and appealingly personal. The sharp political edge she has sometimes shown on the stump was nowhere in evidence. Instead, she told a compelling working class story and rooted her own considerable accomplishments in the American dream. She clearly brings a liberal sensitivity to a variety of issues, but, in this speech, it was the soft liberalism of service and community, not the hard liberalism of anger and radicalism.

James Forsyth of the Spectator was only slightly disappointed:

Michelle Obama played it safe tonight. Gone was the sassy campaigner I remember seeing in Iowa and South Carolina. The aim of the speech was to introduce Michelle Obama to the public and to dispel the idea of her as an angry, divisive figure. On that score, it worked. 

And Dahlia Lithwick of Slate had this sharp analysis:

Here is a woman with a degree from Harvard Law School, who could have talked about law and policy and poverty, and yet she talked about her kids, her husband, and her family. And she didn't do that merely to show us that smart women are soft and cuddly on the inside. She did what everyone else in this campaign is terrified to do: She risked looking sappy and credulous and optimistic when almost everyone has abandoned "hope" and "change" for coughing up hairballs of outrage. Every Democrat in America seems to be of the view that optimism is so totally last February; that now's the time to hunker down and panic real hard. Good for Michelle for reminding us that to "strive for the world as it should be" is still cool, and for being so passionate about that fact that she looked to be near tears.

Watch Michelle Obama's speech:

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

Hillary Clinton did her duty last night. She threw her support behind Barack Obama and delivered the requisite sound bites. There was “No way. No how. No McCain.” And a favorite here in Minnesota, “It makes sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities, because these days, they’re awfully hard to tell apart.”

What she didn’t do was say much about Obama’s platform, leadership abilities, or vision. In a 23-minute speech, Obama the candidate (versus Obama “the Democrat who is not me”) got about 3 minutes of time—and that's a generous tally. For a speech that’s drawn most of the convention’s limelight, that’s a big void. It was evident, as the New York Times reports, that Obama’s team had little input in its writing.

We could see more of the same tonight, when Bill takes the stage. We’ll definitely hear about Hillary. But given reports of Bill’s bruised ego and his lust for recognition of his accomplishments in office, we could get not only a primaries flashback, but a ’90s flashback, too. Here’s hoping he saves some room in his speech for the nominee.

Watch Hillary’s speech:

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

UPDATE (8/27/2008, 5:00 p.m.): My colleague Elizabeth Ryan points me to some choice analysis by Anne Taylor Fleming at the Washington Independent:

Yes, she endorsed Obama—mentioning him at least a dozen times. But what she endorsed was the candidate — not the man. He had no flesh on him. He was the Democratic candidate, and that was enough for her.

There was no talk of Obama’s passions, his career, their shared goals and ideals. Of course, she reaffirmed the big “D” democratic values. We’re for the forgotten, the working class not the upper class. We’re for energy independence and a restitution of the respect America used to garner around the world, so squandered in the last eight years. We’re for health care and hope and change. That’s why I ran, she said—underscore “I.” She never said that’s why Barack Obama is running. It was a passionate but strangely impersonal—almost totally impersonal —endorsement.

Hillary had the unenviable task of forging unity last night, but Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer delivered the near impossible: A rousing speech on energy policy that had folks hootin’ and hollerin’. 

Schweitzer hammered home the key principles that Democrats need to keep drilling into voters’ heads until November. First, there are several energy avenues that don’t wreck the planet and don’t rely on “petro-dictators.” Second, all those avenues lead to American jobs that can’t be outsourced. 

We need to break America's addiction to foreign oil. We need a new energy system that is clean and green and American-made. We need a president who can marshal our nation's resources, get the job done, and deliver the change we need.

That leader is Barack Obama. [Crowd shouts Obama’s name.] Yeah, that’s what I like to hear. Barack Obama knows there's no single platform for energy independence. It's not a question of either wind or clean coal, solar or hydrogen, oil or geothermal. We need ’em all to create a strong American energy system, a system built on American innovation.

After eight years of a White House waiting hand and foot on big oil, John McCain offers more of the same. At a time of skyrocketing fuel prices, when American families are struggling to keep their gas tanks full, John McCain voted 25 times against renewable and alternative energy. Against biofuels. Against solar energy. He even voted against the wind energy.

This not only hurts America's energy independence, it could cost American families more than a hundred thousand jobs. At a time when America should be working harder than ever to develop new, clean sources of energy, John McCain wants more of the same. [Boos.] Wait till you hear this: And he has taken more than a million dollars in campaign donations from the oil and gas industry. [Boos.] Woah. Now he wants to give those same oil companies another 4 billion dollars in tax breaks. [Boos.] Four billion in tax breaks for big oil?

That's a lot of change, but it's not the change that we need.

Watch the video:

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

Twitter isn't the only new website that's changing the party conventions. This week’s gala also has the distinction of being the first Demcoratic National Convention of the YouTube era. Throngs of delegates, protestors, and journalists (professional or otherwise), armed with video cameras, are descending on Denver and swarming the Pepsi Center in hopes of capturing a politician’s gaffe, a protestor’s stunt, or a police officer’s unwarranted action.

The footage is already piling up: There's a Fox News crew accosted by angry protestors, a clash between anti- and pro-abortion rights advocates, and disgruntled protestors being corralled by police (though the inclusion of the word “RIOT” in the clip’s title might be overselling the scuffle). There’s also an interview with Hillary Clinton supporters—not quite as formidable as the media would have us believe—reasoning that their candidate still has a chance of clinching the nomination.

Inside the convention itself, small gatherings and speeches that might get passed over by national networks are being captured by the video sharing site. These include a standout speech by Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) at a breakfast meeting. Also inside the walls of the convention center, a video meme is growing in strength as conventioneers shoot “I Nominate Barack Obama Because…” clips at the YouTube booth in the lobby. 

For busy people who missed the live television broadcasts, YouTube is also a good place to find clips from network coverage of the convention, such as Ted Kennedy’s opening-night speech. Though interested viewers should watch these clips now, since they clearly violate copyright laws.

Image courtesy of jonsson, licensed by Creative Commons.

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

Amid calls for Obama to go for the jugular and burn down Republicans’ houses, it’s worth remembering that this candidate’s insurgent appeal during the primaries was driven in no small part by his ability to lure Independents and Republicans. Former U.S. Representative Jim Leach—a Republican from Iowa—brought that home last night in an eloquent, if a bit dryly delivered, speech teasing out the good values of both parties and tracing where his own had gone astray: 

The party that once emphasized individual rights has gravitated in recent years toward regulating values. The party of military responsibility has taken us to war with a country that did not attack us. The party that formerly led the world in arms control has moved to undercut treaties crucial to the defense of the earth. The party that prides itself on conservation has abdicated its responsibilities in the face of global warming. And the party historically anchored in fiscal restraint has nearly doubled the national debt, squandering our precious resources in an undisciplined and an unprecedented effort to finance a war with tax cuts.

I’ve not heard a more elegant, succinct autopsy of today’s Republican Party.

Tonight is Hillary’s night, all the headlines tell us so. But after that, Democrats should start focusing again on winning over Independents and Republicans, not Hillary supporters.

Watch Leach’s speech:

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

The Democratic National Convention holds the honor of being the first presidential convention featuring  Twitter, the microblogging site launched in 2006. Many prominent journalists, bloggers, and tech-savvy people are using Twitter to share their thoughts in fewer than 141 characters. Here are some of the more interesting observations, or “tweets,” on the Democratic National Convention that have been published so far. If you see any others, be sure to share them in the comments.

Howard Kurtz, Washington Post
“Riot police everywhere. My first perk: a smoothie from Google.”

Jay Rosen, PressThink, journalism professor at NYU
“Do family melodrama better than the networks do family melodrama and you can defuse the pundit's impulse to disrupt party messaging.”

Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist
“I need to spend more time re why this time and convention is so important”

Ana Marie Cox, Time
“Landed. Apparently bunking with Obama Girl. Probably the closest I'll get to the Obama entourage all week. But the view will be good.”

Slate
“Delegates dancing—catastrophic”

Mark Ambinder, the Atlantic
“Trojan, the condom manufacturer, has set up shop near the press mags. They're handing out condoms”

Micah Sifry, the Personal Democracy Forum
“Romney v Biden debate would pit great hair against great hair plugs.”

Joe Trippi, Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign manager
“Roaming convention floor looking for a story - not sure there are any. Obama delegate trackers have gotten a lot of HRC Delegates to switch”

The American Prospect
“teddy sounds good! also, he pledges to live at least till january, and we at tap mean to hold his feet to the fire on that.”

Jane Hamshire, Firedoglake
"McCain may name VP on Thu. My early call that he'll steal Dem convention bounce by naming Lieberman on track"

Spencer Ackerman, Firedoglake
“word from inside the pepsi center press room: NO ALCOHOL! Coverage sure to be negative”

Lindsay Beyerstein, Freelance investigative reporter
“I just got back from the 'free speech zone' at 7th and Auraria. How depressing.”

Matt Cooper, Portfolio magazine
“At the benediction, the minister is praying for teacher pay hikes! That's a father who knows his congregation.”

Ben Smith, the Politico
“949 Frontier to Denver: so far, many tattoos, no political types”

The Uptake
Quotes ollypriesmeyer, "Have you ever been arrested at one of these things? Trust me not as exciting as one might think once they load you up."

Rachel Sklar, the Huffington Post
“Leslie Sanchez says Republicans don't tweet. Hmmm.”

Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine
“I am sad to see bloggers coopted into giving these political publicity fests. Why join the mob? It's already too big.”

Image by  Steve Bott , licensed under  Creative Commons .

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

Thanks to the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson for putting all the oppressive Democratic hand-wringing in perspective this morning:

Since I landed here Saturday night, though, I haven't heard a lot of Democrats crowing about the terrible whuppin' they're about to administer. I've heard predictions of victory, yes, but also a lot of questions. Will Hillary Clinton's die-hard supporters refuse to lay down their arms, even if their champion begs them to? Will an unreconciled Bill Clinton steal the show? Will Obama's acceptance speech at Invesco Field be so stirring and poetic that the Republicans will slam him again for excessive eloquence?

In other words: Are Hillary Clinton's followers, many of whom care deeply about women's issues, ready to accept a Supreme Court majority that would do away with Roe v. Wade, which John McCain would surely deliver? Has Bill Clinton forgotten everything he ever learned about politics and forsaken his lifelong loyalty to the Democratic Party? Would Obama be wise to effectively renounce the use of his great oratorical gifts, which constitute one of his most powerful and effective weapons?

All these questions are just excuses to fret. Unlike Republicans, Democrats like to obsess about what could go wrong. It's kind of a partisan hobby. 

The trick this election, Robinson says (paraphrasing Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell), is to "quit whining about it and just go out and win "

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

Ahh, prepackaged conventions. What’s the media to do? How about rehash the primaries? Hence, we have the Hillary Clinton narrative that just won’t die: The party’s divided, delegates are going to spoil the convention, chaos will reign (cross your fingers).

The Columbia Journalism Review’s Campaign Desk smacked down the tired media meme last week. Choice moment:

[T]he angry-women-will-sink-Obama myth is yet another example of the media confusing activist opinion with public opinion in general. And public opinion generally defies such a simple—if dramatic—storyline.

But the media’s not the only one dumping gasoline on a dying fire. There’s also the McCain camp, which just released this ad:

Kevin Drum, newly blogging for Mother Jones, surmises that “the folks running McCain’s war room are getting cabin fever or something.” But that could be a good thing:

Maybe an attack ad this transparent will be just the thing to finally get all those ex-Hillary supporters fully on board with Obama.

Drum points to some savvy analysis by Jonathan Cohn at the New Republic, who notes that despite all the hand-wringing about party unity, the Democrats are remarkably in step with each other:

[F]or all the talk of disunity, the really remarkable story about the Democrats right now is the absence of meaningful dissent on the party's agenda. When it comes to substance, the Democrats are arguably more united than they have been since the early 1960s. Yes, you can find divisions on both domestic and foreign policy, on everything from the relative priority of deficit reduction to America's response to Darfur. But these debates don't match the kind we've seen in the past.

For her part, Hillary had this to say about McCain’s ad blasts this morning at a breakfast for the New York delegation: “I’m Hillary Clinton, and I do not approve that message.”

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

As the Democratic National Convention kicks off, there will be no shortage of right-wing “faux outrage” gleaned from the heavily covered procession in Denver, mused smintheus over at Daily Kos.

He compiled a list of what to look out for from the ultra-conservative talking heads. Among the possible targets: the Obamas using their children as a political ploy, too many dark-skinned speakers, lights dimmed/not dimmed during the national anthem, or the ill-mannered protesters outside the Pepsi Center. Fox News’ Griff Jenkins already has a jump-start on this last point.

One thing many Dems are hoping will not show up on the rant roundups? Convention-goers ridiculing John McCain’s military service. Despite the blatant mocking of John Kerry’s military service at the 2004 Republican National Convention—where delegates brandished Band-Aids with purple hearts drawn on them—even a benign reference to John McCain’s time in Vietnam by anyone in attendance might induce frothing at the mouth and accusations of “going negative.” We saw this already with the media’s coverage of Gen. Wesley Clark’s comment concerning McCain’s military cred. Just another example of Republican hypocrisy, writes Kangaroo Brisbane Australia on the ReBelle Nation blog.

We’ll just have to wait and see which possible targets emerge as the dominant force behind the bulging eyes and pulsing veins of the media worlds’ attack dogs.

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

Little “real news” is expected to come out of Denver and St. Paul, and any potential drama—from unhappy Clinton loyalists, for instance—is being carefully planned for.

But this wasn’t always the case. Detailing the events of the 1948 Democratic National Convention for the Huffington Post, Chris Weigant writes, “The Democratic National Convention back then did have dramatic events showing the party not just divided, but actually splintering into factions and birthing a new (but, thankfully, short-lived) third party as a result. All this from the convention floor itself.”

Looking further back, the Atlantic offers up historic convention perspectives from its archives dating to 1884. Articles covering the 1884, 1936, 1968, and 1980 conventions trace the impact of radio and television, analyze the shortcomings of the process, and provide an interesting look at the road to the modern convention.

The story of that modern convention is really a “tale-of-two-conventions,” according to Andrew Ferguson of the Weekly Standard. Ferguson writes, “As the party conventions grow wan and meaningless, drained of all surprise and news value and practical importance, they have been kept alive by the second convention, the journalists’ convention, which in contrast grows larger, more elaborate, and more robust every four years.” (Thanks, Harper's.)

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

Over at Slate, Jack Shafer wonders why news outlets are sending 15,000 reporters to this year’s Republican and Democratic conventions. “[T]hese political gatherings tend to produce very little real news,” Shafer writes. “Yet the networks, the newspapers, the magazines, and the Web sites continue to insist on sending battalions of reporters to sift for itsy specks of information.”

It’d be one thing if that were, say, 15,000 news outlets each sending one reporter. But it’s not. Even Slate, Shafer says, is sending eight reporters to Denver and six to St. Paul.

In a year of blistering cost-cutting and layoffs, and with remaining reporters spread ever more thinly, is this really the best use of newspapers’ dollars? Might many of those 15,000 reporters not be better utilized to, say, cover local news during the two weeks of the conventions?

“As news organizations dwindle,” writes Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine, “this is an irresponsible use of resources and it only shows how the industry’s leaders are tied to doing things the way they always did them. That’s what will be the death of journalism.”

It’s probably fair to say that what happens inside convention walls is thoroughly rehearsed, uninspiring, and un-newsworthy. But what’s surprising about that? Most reporters worth their salt know that, as with any well-orchestrated media circus, the good stories lie well beyond convention parameters. Minnesota Public Radio’s Bob Collins urges journalists to take a few detours: “Look for a better location to learn the real stories behind the script from which the Dems and Republicans want the media to read.” 

(Thanks, Romenesko.)

The end-of-summer Republican and Democratic conventions are attracting millions in corporate donations, report Paul Demko and Anna Pratt for the Minnesota Independent, with companies like Cargill and Qwest taking advantage of “the biggest loophole in U.S. campaign finance law: the absence of any limits on what corporations and individuals can give in support of presidential conventions.”

They aren’t required to disclose dollar amounts to the public, either, and the Minnesota Independent’s attempts to find out—staffers contacted 53 organizations listed as donors on the RNC host committee’s website—were mostly ignored or declined. (Just eight companies agreed to disclose how much they’ve donated to the convention.)

The Republican get-together may be celebrated on broadcast television as an exercise in democracy but it will serve as a unique opportunity for special interests to buy access to influential people without the public much the wiser. Ditto for Denver. The delegates will vote on floors paved with money.

I wonder how much of the money is going toward special convention attire.

Image by A Siegel, licensed under Creative Commons.