Political conventions are strange beasts.Part tent revival to whip the faithful into a frenzy, part scripted awards show, and part political gamesmanship, the combination yields a swirl of passionate speeches, a raucous roll call ceremony, and gaudy red, white and blue fashion.It is American political theater at its best, and Colorado is in the spotlight this week with the Democratic National Convention starting Monday in Denver and culminating in the coronation of nominee Barack Obama.

But what exactly is the purpose of this massive event?”Historically, it mattered since they actually chose the candidate,” said Joshua Dunn, political science professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. “The conventions remain a big deal because it allows the parties’ candidates to present themselves to the country.””It’s an opportunity for each political party to deliver its message to the American people,” said Bob Loevy, political science professor at Colorado College, who will be at the convention with 25 students. “It gives people who haven’t been paying a lot of attention the chance to size up the candidate. Many people are undecided going into the conventions, and we know from surveys that a number of voters make up their minds after watching the conventions.”Of course, that doesn’t mean a convention necessarily makes for riveting entertainment.”I’ll try to suffer through some of it,” Dunn sighed. “They’re so boring now. They’re so well-scripted, and the parties do a good job making sure nothing too interesting happens.”As prime time TV switches gears from platform diving to platform planks, here’s some brutally honest advice from Dunn on political bloodsport’s entertainment value. He’s keeping his eye on the woman who was favored to win the nomination, Hillary Rodham Clinton: “The only hope for excitement is if the Clinton camp and the Obama camp start fighting, if something happens where the remaining fissures between Obama and Clinton are exposed.”That’s a possibility, and I wouldn’t put it past the Clinton camp to do that.”He’ll also be watching Obama’s acceptance speech at Invesco Field on Thursday night, the centerpiece of this week’s political frenzy.Loevy suggests watching the speech, the street and the buzz: the acceptance speech, whether demonstrators on the street distract from the Democrats’ message, and the buzz by Wednesday on whether this is a successful convention or not, which will depend largely on whether the party can unify.Pop the popcorn, grab the remote and the mouse, and get ready for the show. Convention rundownThe roll call vote? The party platform? What’s up with all the strange rituals at a political convention, anyway?Here’s a quick look at why they do the odd things they do at a convention, and some highlights to watch for:PurposeAmerican political conventions were created in the 1830s so delegates (party insiders back then, mostly campaign volunteers now) could choose their nominees for president and veep, and hash out a platform explaining their party’s positions.Since then, elections have become more open and democratic and the importance of conventions has diminished, but the vestiges of those bygone days remain intact.The meat and potatoes of a convention are the party platform, the roll call vote, and the nominee’s acceptance speech.But much of the importance of a convention these days is symbolic: The Dems return to Denver 100 years after the party nominated William Jennings Bryan in Denver in 1908. Barack Obama’s acceptance speech comes on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. And even Sen. Hillary Clinton’s prime time Tuesday speech is on the 88th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote.The 2008 Democratic National Convention is an event designed to promote party unity, energize the party base, and present the candidate to a national audience.Party platform (Tuesday night, main speaker Sen. Hillary Clinton)The first DNC to establish a party platform was in 1840 in Baltimore, when Martin Van Buren was nominated.And the Dems made waves in 1920 when the party platform supported the right to vote for women (which the Republican platform rejected). Women received the right to vote a few months later.As for 2008, the Democratic National Committee’s platform committee has already decided party positions on issues such as Iraq and health care in a draft of the platform, so don’t expect any bombshells this week.UCCS political science professor Joshua Dunn said candidates “let hard-core party activists loose on the platform,” so these constituencies are satisfied and feel they are making changes. Yet, he maintains that the platform is not all that significant.The most intriguing addition to the Democratic platform might be a plank that seems to imply Clinton was treated unfairly in the primary. It reads, in part: “Our party is proud that we have put 18 million cracks in the highest glass ceiling … We believe that standing up for our country means standing up against sexism and all intolerance. Demeaning portrayals of women cheapen our debates, dampen the dreams of our daughters and deny us the contributions of too many. Responsibility lies with us all.” Roll call vote (Wednesday night, main speaker is Obama running mate Joe Biden, along with former President Bill Clinton)”From the great state of Colorado …” The roll call vote is a fun and festive ceremony, as delegates vote for a foregone winner.But the roll call has been around since the first DNC in 1832, and it wasn’t always so frivolous. For more than a century, delegates came to a convention not knowing who the nominee would be, and yet they had to reach a two-thirds majority during the roll call.That led to dozens of ballots as delegates shifted allegiances to find a compromise candidate. The longest fight was in 1924, when it took 103 ballots to nominate dark horse candidate John W. Davis after the two leading candidates couldn’t garner enough votes. The political gridlock inspired Will Rogers’ joke, “I’m not a member of any organized political party, I’m a Democrat.”Complaints that the old nominating process gave party bosses too much power go back to the Progressive movement of the early 20th century, as they charged that kingmakers in smoke-filled rooms were running the elections.But substantive change didn’t occur until after the violent clashes of the 1968 convention in Chicago, when young anti-war activists believed they weren’t being represented by the Democratic delegates.”… Power and control over delegates were historically held by state party leaders,” Harvey Schantz wrote in his essay, “The Presidential Selection Process.” “In 1968, when Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic party nomination for president, his major strategy was the courtship of party leaders. He did not even enter a single primary.”George McGovern chaired a commission that changed nomination rules to be more democratic, beginning in 1972. Primaries and caucuses threw open the nominating process to millions of people, and the composition of delegates is supposed to fairly represent minorities and young voters.These days, the roll call is merely a coronation, but the celebratory roll call vote may win back a hint of its former tension this year.Clinton’s name will be in nomination; she originally declined the honor, but a grass-roots effort by her supporters changed that. The worry, of course, is that the party won’t seem unified if nearly half the delegates vote for someone other than the nominee.Colorado Springs Clinton delegate Brenda Krause thinks skipping Clinton’s name for the sake of unity would have been misguided.”I think that denigrates democracy a little bit,” Krause said. “I learned they try to get everything wrapped up for unity and smoothness, and so there aren’t any brouhahas. I don’t agree with that.”Look for Clinton’s many supporters to make their voices heard during the roll call. Nevertheless, don’t count on honest-to-goodness floor fights returning to the convention this time around.Acceptance speech (Thursday night, main speaker Sen. Barack Obama, America’s first black presidential nominee from a major party)The spectacle of an acceptance speech at Invesco Field before 75,000 screaming fans is a far cry from the days when nominees didn’t even show up at a convention.Franklin D. Roosevelt broke tradition by accepting the nomination in person in 1932 and promising a “New Deal” for voters. That move helped turn the nominee into the star of the convention, and the acceptance speech is now a centerpiece of the campaign.The glamorous John F. Kennedy was the first to leave the convention site and give his acceptance speech at an outdoor stadium, at the L.A. Coliseum in 1960.Kennedy was the only candidate to do so for a half-century, until Obama repeats the feat Thursday night.”The nomination speech, that’s the one that really matters the most,” said Dunn. “I’ll be looking to see if Obama puts some extra meat on this rhetoric, some real clear policy positions.”A downside for Obama? It’s hard to fill an outdoor stadium with balloons and confetti, another convention tradition. The upside? If you can fill an entire stadium with supporters, it certainly portrays an image of strength.The Invesco Field acceptance speech will be the climax of the convention’s festivities, and Democrats are hoping for a big finish.But Loevy had one warning: “Conventions are a failure if you don’t win in November. They are quickly forgotten.”

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