Win or lose, Republican candidate John McCain and Democratic candidate Barack Obama have their places in U.S. political history as presidential nominees.
For more than 150 years, Democrats and Republicans have held national conventions.
The conventions, held during U.S. presidential election years, traditionally mark the end of the presidential primary season and the beginning of campaigning between the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates.
With famous party speakers, musical acts and loads of confetti, the conventions are also political celebrations.
“They’ve always been very big events,” said James Gimpel, a government professor at the University of Maryland. “This has always been a very important event in the history of U.S. presidential elections.”
Historically, party leaders came together at the convention to make the final decision on the party’s presidential candidate. But with the primary elections determining the party candidate, conventions have lost some of their official importance and become more of a celebration of the party.
The party members support the party message and salute their presidential candidate, with the candidate speaking on the last night of the convention.
“In recent years, it’s not so much a nomination as much as it is announcing the nomination,” Gimpel said.
Both parties receive about $15 million from the Federal Election Commission to go toward the cost of their conventions. The Democratic National Convention was held last week in Denver, while the Republican National Convention is happening this week in Minneapolis-St.Paul.
The first national convention of the Democratic Party was actually held in Baltimore in 1832. The first Republican National Convention was held in Philadelphia in 1856.
