Why are we still holding conventions?

Of course the candidate’s acceptance speech is a huge deal with a big audience and a powerful impact. Along with the three fall debates, the convention speech is one for the four single most important hours of the entire campaign.

So keep the two big TV speeches. But do we really need four days – three if you decide to hold it in the Gulf during hurricane season – to get there? Do we really need the droning and unwatched speech by the guy who lost or the first-ever Laotian-American Republican State Representative or the union howler who is a teleprompter to predictable outrage over the other parties’ entitlement plan? Why not cut it all down to the commercial it is and focus just on the stars? Why not focus on two tight prime time hours, held on one or even across two nights? Hour one: Stinkerfest, why the other guy is so horrible (maybe in 3D for 2016!). Hour two: the ticket is introduced and the candidates speak. Balloons drop, nation saved, back to the campaign trail. The super-sized four-day conventions made great sense in 1920.

But it’s time for an update.