I haven’t posted any overtly political snippets lately (at least not in my mind although undoubtedly someone will point out something to me).

Anyway, blog sensei had posted how her preference would be to vote on issues instead of voting on personalities as we now do: I wish we had a political system that let us vote on the issues, not on one person who is supposed to embody everything we believe in, from our taste in music to our position on alternative energy or universal health care.

The more I thought about it, the more I found myself in agreement.

Then, I was thinking about the upcoming political conventions, are these things really necessary anymore? Aren’t they just an excuse to spend money which could be put to much better use for all of this country’s citizens?

Political nominating conventions had more relevance in a day and age where there were only a few television channels and people traveled mostly by train.

Today though, we have four or five cable news channels, C-Span 1 and 2, a couple of public TV channels and the old standby broadcast news outlets. This plus newspapers, national news magazine, the internet and of course a slew of radio stations.

The primary process has undergone a radical change over the last decade, by the time the convention rolls around the candidates for the two major parties have been decided? Is there some surprise in who is going to be nominated at this point - I think not. So, why have these big conventions? I mean at one time their purpose was to get a party’s message out and at this point in time, if you’re a person who is going to make the investment of time and watch the conventions, chances are more than likely you’re pretty well-informed to begin with and have been following the campaign for the last 12 months.