Blackburn: First, Clinton! Then, what's-his-name

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — How many times can a person say Clinton? We will find out this week as anchorfolk and analysts participate in the festival called the Democratic National Convention.

On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton speaks. The keynote speaker also speaks that night. Keynote speaking used to be a huge deal. The Democrats' keynoter is Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia. Guess whose speech will get the attention.

On Wednesday, Bill Clinton speaks. So does Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida. Let us not embarrass Rep. Wexler by guessing whose speech will get all the attention.

After the speechifying, Sen. Clinton's name will be put into nomination for president. Sen. Barack Obama also will be nominated. He will win the roll call vote, actually. But we have known that he would for months. Guess the loser whose name will get most of the attention.

After two days of nonstop Clinton, Obama has been allotted time to make an acceptance speech on Thursday. By then, television viewers will have switched to the Food Network for a change of pace.

Somewhere, a Republican strategist will draw a bead on the Democrats down the barrel of his magnificent Cuban cigar and ask himself:

"Should we crack wise about the Clinton National Convention, or should we go straight to making their candidate's first name Clinton — Clinton Obama, as we did when we turned Walter Mondale into Carter Mondale? Or we could say Obama's middle initial doesn't stand for Hussein; it stands for Hillary. That's a knee-slapper. So many openings. All good ones."

Our hypothetical GOP strategist already has congratulated himself for his foresight in following the Democrats closely. After a numbing week with the Democrats, the audience probably won't tune into politics again until John McCain delivers his acceptance speech. That means viewers will miss the boring stuff and come back just in time to hear McCain call them "my friends." Perfect timing.

Of course, political acumen had nothing to do with the timing. The Olympics sucked out all the air for two weeks. Condoleezza Rice could hardly get called on for her daily reminders that it is "time" for Russians to get out of Georgia and her warning that there will be "consequences" if they don't. If war and threats of war can't get attention, how can the governor of Virginia?

These are not your grandfather's conventions. That is one reason they don't pull audiences like beach volleyball's. Delegates don't walk out over the platform or credentials. The nominee is picked in advance. What the nominee wants, the nominee gets, unless a Clinton's desire is stronger than the candidate's want.

Since he sewed up the nomination, the Illinois senator has been a friend to all mankind, and especially of the parts of womankind that are no friends of his. He extended his friendship even to the untimely selected delegates from Michigan and Florida. Let them come in peace, he said, so they will all be on hand to applaud the Clintons. By assuring that there would be none of what Rice calls "consequences" for disregarding the election calendar in 2008, he may have moved the starting gun for 2012 up to some time in 2011. When they think about that, voters will not thank him.

Republicans have figured out what the convention is for: Suck it up and unite behind the candidate, drink the lobbyists' booze and hit the last gavel within the networks' budgets for overtime.

The Democrats never figured it out. Perforce, they have to observe network schedules or the lights go out. Otherwise, though, they treat conventions as psychodramas in which everyone shadow boxes with their inner demons in front of soothing enablers. The results can be alarming, as they were when Ted Kennedy took on President Jimmy Carter in 1980. The former was saluted Monday and the latter spoke, by the way. They were among the warm-up acts for the Clintons.

Tom Blackburn is a former member of the editorial board of The Palm Beach Post.