Because televised coverage of The Games consumed approximately 63,000 consecutive broadcast hours, the dousing of the Olympic torch may leave a hole in your viewing schedule. No more 3 a.m. replays of synchronized swimming to comfort chronic insomniacs.

Americans can take heart in the fact that two major domestic circuses are set to commence in the wake of the Olympics. These will feature all of the mindless color and meaningless pageantry we've become accustomed to in the last two weeks, without the annoying distraction of genuine competition. I refer, of course, to the presidential nominating conventions of the Democratic and Republican parties.

The first of these spectacles will take place next week when the Democrats gather in Denver for the coronation of Barack I. Highlights will include three nights of strategic orations by carefully selected party dignitaries. These people will not be impressed by the accomplishments of the Bush administration.

Prominent Democrats past and present will be celebrated. Bill and Hillary will be showcased, applauded, hugged and showered with confetti. The memory of Harry Truman will be invoked. John Edwards and Monica Lewinsky will be hard to find.

To demonstrate solidarity with the common folk, token "ordinary citizens" will be included in the convention audience. During a speech about economic hardship, a single mother of 12 who is attending night school to become a social worker will be recognized for her can-do spirit and given a rousing ovation.

Gravitas-laden commentators will struggle to remain conscious while speculating in somber tones about the details of the party's platform and the symbolic implications of Nancy Pelosi's pants suit.

The festivities will conclude on the fourth night with a re-enactment of the Sermon on the Mount staged in a football stadium. Candidate Obama will be featured in the speaking role, no doubt sporting a flag pin on his lapel. At some point, the band will play "Happy Days Are Here Again."

Marshall Ramsey

Clarion Ledger |  Jackson, Miss.

"No, I won't be your vice president."

 From an entertainment perspective, the fact that I know all of this in advance is a major problem facing both conventions. The modern system of primary elections and state caucuses has turned conventions from raucous, deal-making conclaves of intrigue into staid sojourns of redundancy. To make matters worse, both parties' presumptive nominees have announced plans to name their vice-presidential choices before their respective conventions.

The left-leaning black candidate with little experience in international affairs, Obama, will choose Joe Biden or his look-alike: a centrist white guy with an extensive foreign policy-national security dossier. Sensitive to concerns about his age, McCain will try to find somebody who was born after the Coolidge administration.

Bereft of even the meager suspense of the running-mate selection, the conventions figure to have ratings problems. As their vigilantly crafted scripts dutifully unfold, viewers across a hungry nation will turn to Nick at Nite for solace. It was not always so.

The last truly wide-open, old time convention was held by the Democrats in 1960. Exiled from the White House for the previous eight years, the Dems descended upon Los Angeles with five legitimate contenders and host of "favorite son" candidates.

At the time, the primary election system was in its infancy. Only 13 states and the District of Columbia held pre-convention contests that year and the results of many of those were non-binding on the delegates. Young charismatic Jack Kennedy had won 10 of the state primaries but, due to the large field of contenders, had captured only 32 percent of the total popular vote in doing so.

The Stop-Kennedy movement was led by then-Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, who had shunned the primaries. He headed a flamboyant Texas delegation clad in cowboy boots and Stetsons and loudly proclaimed that he'd never accept the second slot on the ticket. Former President Truman endorsed fellow Missourian Stuart Symington and opined that only he or Johnson could possibly hope to be elected. Eleanor Roosevelt spearheaded the effort to re-nominate Adlai Stevenson who'd lost the last two elections to Eisenhower, while Hubert Humphrey and his populist brigade from Minnesota experienced a mechanical breakdown on their campaign bus -- a development that would prove prophetic to their campaign itself.

All this made for great theater.

Though I was just a kid, I still remember my parents pirating our sole TV set to rabidly follow each night's dramatic events in grainy, black & white detail. When the convention closed four days after its tumultuous beginning with a unanimous endorsement of the Kennedy-Johnson ticket, it was obvious even to a child that deals had been cut off-camera.

The old pros in the proverbial smoke-filled rooms enjoyed an advantage denied to the modern primary voter: Yhey actually knew the people they were nominating. If the guy was a snake or a boob, they knew that, too, and acted accordingly.

The best convention action we can hope for this year is the roll-call vote of the states that Hillary Clinton has foisted on the Democrats. Though its outcome is pre-ordained, Hillary feels that it will be "cathartic" for her supporters to see how close they came to their goal.

Of course, this exercise will also put a dent in the aura of inevitability cultivated by her former rival's campaign. If Obama were to lose the general election, leadership of the party would revert to Hillary's husband. Four years hence, she might be persuaded to reluctantly re-enter the limelight to lead the Dems from the wilderness by running against an incumbent who by then would be 76 years old.

Watch out, Barack. Though I don't remember seeing her in Beijing, I still suspect Hillary to be capable of a back flip.

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