Ten minutes later we were back in the concourse, again on the prowl for easily flustered politicians. Making our way down to the floor, who should we run into but one University President Lawrence H. Summers, chatting up Sen. Chuck Schumer ’71, D-N.Y., in an aisle.

If only they had broadcast on television Summers’ reaction to my asking him the question about Kerry’s sexiest trait. Maybe then the conventions could wrangle more than an hour a night of coverage from NBC, since his reaction— highlighted by a look of horror when informed that James Carville’s answer had been Kerry’s wife—deserved a several-minute montage in itself.

Or maybe the Republican and Democratic conventions could come to grips with the fact that, well, no one wants to watch four straight nights of rehashed campaign slogans. Or an event of any sort with a foregone conclusion. Or several elderly women from Mississippi dancing to a modified version of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.”

Several older delegates I spoke to conceded that they were enjoying themselves but that the convention didn’t mean anything, at least not the way it did when no one knew who the nominee would be on the first day, let alone March. So why bother?

To advance a platform? Even after his speech Thursday night, Kerry was relying on vague generalities and has yet to set forth a concrete exit strategy for Iraq or handling the war against terror.

To rally support for the party’s cause? That’s the stuff of commercials, not nationally broadcast four-day indoctrination campaigns.

To hear Bill Clinton speak?

Well, maybe. But next time, don’t send me.

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.