(New York City) Everything was predictable at the Republican National Convention. Everyone knew who the presidential and vice presidential nominees were going to be. Even the protesters were expected.

     Conventions “...used to be a lot more interesting than they are now,” said James Carville, a Democrat and advisor to President Bill Clinton. Carville worked on Clinton’s campaigns. He was in New York because his wife, Mary Matalin, is an advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney. She also was an advisor to the first President Bush.

     “Good thing you’re covering this one because they may not be around too much longer,” he told THE DAYTIME (after the RNC was over, the Kerry campaign announced that Carville would now be advising their campaign).

     The Republicans and Democrats have conventions to nominate candidates for President and vice president and to adopt their “platform”, the philosophies the candidates will push in their campaign. The Republicans decided all of these things beforehand.

     It wasn’t always this way. Everybody would want to know who the vice presidential nominee was going to be. Sometimes they didn’t even know who the presidential nominee was going to be until the Convention. About 20 years ago that all changed.

Network TV  (CBS, NBC and ABC) does not cover the conventions as much as it used to. Not as many people care because it is becoming more and more obvious who the nominee is going to be every time.

     Television reporters from other countries reported about the Convention, though. There were reporters from places like Japan, Germany, England, and Canada there.

     But the 2,509 delegates cared about what was going on at the Convention. On Tuesday, the second day of the Convention, delegates participated in “Compassion Across America” and did community service projects such as working in soup kitchens and building a Habitat for Humanity house. William “Wink” Weiss from Phoenix, Arizona, went to Brooklyn to help people with schooling. “That was memorable,” he said.  He was also looking forward to hearing Bush speak.

     Ray Barnipp, a delegate from Arkansas, was on his first visit to New York City. He was there with his wife and his grown son. He loved John McCain and Rudy Giuliani’s speeches, which he thought were “...factual, and good for everyone to know.”

These are the things delegates think it is important to cover, even if there are no surprises.