Olympics and Political Conventions

How to compare the 2008 Beijing Olympics and America's political conventions?

Well, pholks I just don't know. As I struggled to stay awake during some of the synchronized ribbon dancing competition (aka rythmic gymnastics) during NBC's Olympic blitz, one night, I said to myself: “Self, how about a column comparing the Olympics and the Democrat and Republican national political conventions?”

To which self replied: “Are you going to compare how much they are alike or how different they are?”

To which I replied, “Self, you know that's a good question. What do you think?” The reply was, “That's your problem, you're the writer.”

I realize that the Demos big party will be over and done with or at least winding down when both of you readers see this, but my take on this subject should stand.

Let's start with the similarities. Both events have big opening and closing ceremonies but don't expect the Demos or the GOP to have anything close to the Beijing masterpiece which still has the world buzzing. In both cases, there are thousands of participants performing all kinds of extraordinary moves.

The Beijing event was almost unbelievable with thousands of people, many of them youngsters, moving and performing in unison.

Reports say at least 15,000 persons were involved in moving, dancing and performing precision acrobatic moves, with many of them suspended somehow hundreds of feet in the air.
Fireworks, which of course have deep roots in the Chinese culture, played major roles in the opening and closing ceremonies.

The Summer Olympics and American presidential elections are held every four years and are on the same schedule. Good or bad?

There were some fine speeches in Beijing presented in several languages, including of course, English.

The presentation of awards always is special in the Olympics. So is the lighting of the torch.

Teamwork is key to many events every Olympics. The best teamwork generally results in gold, silver and bronze medals, the symbols of being the best.

Now pholks, let's look a little closer at some of the really big differences between the Olympics and our political conventions.

While both the Olympics and our conventions make a big deal over starting and ending their big doings with lots of hoopla, they go about it very differently.

Can you imagine getting 15,000 Democrats or Republicans to act as one? Wearing funny looking hats, jumping up and down waving signs and acting like fools (phools) is a given every four years. But can you envision either of those groups performing any of the things we all saw from Beijing? Just one misstep, drum beat, dance step, fan wave, out-of-synch twist or turn ruins the whole thing. The Olympics is precision. Political conventions try for orchestrated rah, rah, cheer, waving, hollering, sign waving, etc. but pholks it ain't the same.

Fireworks are another area of disparity. Olympic fireworks are spectacular and eye candy. Political fireworks are vehicle, often nasty, often out of eyesight and can happen at any time. Often they go off due to short fuses.

Sometimes there simply are misfires. Let's not forget the duds.

Some Olympic events and American politics deal with passing the baton.

Two American track relay teams paid the price for dropping their batons in Beijing.

But in politics there are too many hands grabbing at the mythical party leadership symbol for anyone to get or keep a firm grip. And many times it takes month, years or the next election to determine if something was dropped or the hand-off was sloppy.

I could go on pholks, but I still have more American political convention coverage to watch, between innings, half-times, pit stops and Final Jeopardy.