Denver

The Democratic Convention in Denver is going to be the pep rally it was always supposed to be, which is fine, I guess. But stuff can be done there besides pretty speeches.

First off, forget about the platform, nobody reads the damn things anyway,

Let Hillary's name get put into nomination, then let her withdraw her name in prime time. Let her elected delegates vote for her. It's magnanimous, and makes decent television. Give Edwards his delegates back and let them vote for him too while we're at it.

Then, start working on the technical stuff, like how to elect a president in 2012. First off, we should have a proposal to scrap the 12th amendment and replace it was a popularly elected presidency, and as preparation, redo the primary system to reflect the preliminaries for such a change.

Iowa and New Hampshire as first should be dumped in the trash heap. Michigan's political leadership was right about them. Have regional primaries, if some states object, then too damn bad. 2012 won't have a real race anyway unless Barry fucks up really bad (which won't happen), so using the '12 primary as a test bed won't really do any harm.

Have the national popular vote COUNT. Hillary was bitching about the national popular vote totals, and she has a point, but not this time. Next time, either the people elect the nominee or they don't. Have the people, not the delegates nominate the presidential nominee and let the national chairperson announce it at the beginning.

For the 2012 convention, don't ditch the supers, ditch the electeds. If a national popular vote nominates the presidential candidate (and ratifies the VP) then we it becomes a convention like the Stationary Show or Comicon, which is what it's been like for the past thirty years anyway.Therefore, it should be a convention of professionals who want to get together and talk shop, nothing else.

We need a "conference on revision of the McGovern commission rules" for sometime during the first year of the Obama administration.