More Trouble Than They're Worth?

This is my 19th convention, and I love them. To me, conventions are part of our long democratic tradition, part of what makes America what is.

But when I got to Boston a month ago and saw businesses being forced to close, highways and train lines being shut down, and millions of tax dollars being spent, all in the name of making the city safe, I wondered aloud, if hosting the Democratic Convention is first prize, what do you get for second? And the answer, at least to most New Yorkers, seems to be hosting the Republican Convention.

As unbelievable as it sounds, a CBS News-New York Times poll conducted last week showed a majority of New Yorkers, 52 percent, believe the convention should have been held somewhere else.

And who can blame them? New York is being locked down tighter than Boston was. The thought of terrorist attacks hangs over everything. And a quarter of a million demonstrators, who have come to protest who knows what, want to tramp all over the new grass in Central Park, which the city just re-sodded at the cost of $18 million.

I suppose conventions really lost their reason for being once the parties began selecting candidates beforehand in the primaries. But they've hung on because of tradition and the enormous pressure from big metropolitan governments, which wanted the money and the publicity that conventions brought in.

But knowing what they now entail, you have to wonder if any city will welcome these gatherings four years from now.

I never thought I'd say it, but these conventions may be becoming more trouble than they're worth.

By Bob Schieffer