Brokered Convention

Tom Hynes sounded a little disgusted. "Paul Simon lost in New Hampshire and Iowa by a total of 6,000 votes," the Cook County assessor said. "I could get that in half of my ward. " The way Chicago Democrats look at the world, there is something grossly unfair about the way voters in two tiny states could all but eliminate a big- state candidate like Illinois Sen. Paul Simon from the party's presidential nomination. It wasn't like that in the old days, they say, when clout and the deal were in flower.

Once upon a time, an increasingly popular fairy tale goes, America chose its leaders far more wisely than it does now. Every four years, practical, pragmatic men closeted themselves behind closed doors, lighted cigars so that the room might be filled with smoke, and selected an able candidate for president. There were giants of the earth in those days, the fairy tale continues - Roosevelts and Trumans. Then, a little band of zealous Jacobins wrenched the process away from those good men and delivered it into the hands of the mob, whereupon dark days befell the Republic, and pygmies walked where giants had once stood.

Once upon a time, the carnival came through town every year, turning Farmer Brown's cornfield into a riotous midway of dancing girls, sideshow freaks, food and drink and sights to dazzle the senses, spectacles wondrous enough to taunt the dreams of youth for years. Then the carnival stopped coming, an apparant victim of changing times. All that was left were the fading memories of old-timers, who would regale the young folks with tales of the days and nights that would come no more.