“A national convention is as fascinating as a revival or a hanging.  It is vulgar, ugly, stupid, and tedious, to be sure, and yet there suddenly comes a show so gaudy and hilarious, so melodramatic and obscene, so unimaginably exhilarating and preposterous that one lives a gorgeous year in an hour.”

– H.L. Mencken (quoted in Ralph G. Martin, Ballots & Bandwagons, at 11)