don’t knock it till you’ve tried it

Clinton-haters forget that Bill Clinton is the only Democrat in the last three decades to have gone up against the Republicans and succeeded. In part, he owed it to old-fashioned bare-knuckled butt-ugly politics, which the Democrats of 2008 are far too delicate to embrace and way eager (they say) to move beyond.

For all the rest of you (and even if you don’t admit it, I’ll bet you know there’s nothing new under the sun): Karl Rove has suggestions on how to win in the knife fight in Denver. Here’s my favorite bit:

Rule #5: Focus on Staging. Conventions are elaborate made-for-TV productions. We live in a culture of the visual. Every moment and every event should be scripted. The media will complain about it, but think through what messages you want and when you want them. This script must be visually powerful and interesting enough to keep the cameras on your candidate and not somewhere else. Make the spectacle personal. The Al and Tipper Gore kiss, for instance, did him a lot of good. And be sure to provide fresh content all the time. In the era of cable TV, talk radio, the blogosphere and YouTube, someone is watching and talking all the time. If you’re not pressing content into all available channels, someone else will.

National political conventions are equal parts carnival, prime-time soap opera, policy lecture and weeklong party. They are easy to caricature and increasingly anachronistic. But they have been an important element of the liturgy of democracy. And while in recent decades conventions have become antiseptic, predictable and largely ignored by the national press, this year, for the Democrats, could be different.

Interesting. Wait, though.

The kiss did Al Gore a lot of good?

Then how come he isn’t president?

Plus: ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.