My old conservative friend Ed Morrissey thinks it’s time to get rid of political conventions.  Now Ed and I rarely agree on any thing but in this case we do.  Ed:

The quadrennial national conventions hearken back to bygone days of American elections. Conventions have been romanticized in films like The Best Man, in which Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson slugged it out for the party’s nomination in a tough floor fight, only to have their dirty machinations enable a cleaner candidate to emerge as the winner. The Manchurian Candidate takes a much less romantic view, but again frames conventions as a forum for the critical choice of nominees.

Let’s face it: The days when conventions controlled party nominations for the presidency have long since passed. Although every four years the political media wishes for an open convention, the last year in which a major-party nominee had to win the nod at a brokered convention was 1952, and the last time a nominee from a brokered convention actually won the general election was 1932 — 80 years ago. Ever since, the primary/caucus system has produced clear nominees for first-ballot victories, most of those pro-forma events.

Even when the national conventions did have the power to pick nominees, the process was anything but savory. State parties used the caucus system to choose delegates in the same manner that they chose nominees for state and local offices, a system that was rife with corruption and still to this day produces confusion and disarray. The primary system and the secret ballot provided much-needed reform to the electoral process at every level of politics, and a full adoption of the primary system along with bound delegates would make the conventions completely unnecessary in most cases, at least in terms of nominating presidential candidates.

Ed’s right – the nominee has been a done deal before the convention for decades – largely as a result of the democratization of the nominating process.  It’s not always pretty but prettier than the smoke filled rooms that proceeded it.  For decades the party conventions have been little more than free TV time – a kabuki dance of of political double speak.  Before cable/satellite when people only had  3 or 4 channels to chose from they watched.  Today they have 120 channels not to mention Netflix and streaming video.   So people just don’t watch anymore.  The over the air networks are giving the conventions one hour a night and will lose money on that.  Even FOX news was giving as much coverage to the hurricane as the Republican convention – they don’t want people channel surfing to the Weather Channel.