This isn't a winner's convention, it's Custer's Last Stand with balloons and lifelike politician puppets. It's the blowout that will rid the Democrats of some of their dead weight, like Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, while keeping them competitive enough with target groups that they can blame their defeat on discrimination, rather than a popular revolt against their failed economic policies.

◼ My Abortion,'Tis of Thee - Daniel Greenfield/Sultan Knish

There's a moment in every party when no one knows anymore why they are at the party or what the point of the party is. The party is just there and they're there and they're doing their best to pretend to be having fun, but worryingly they're not sure what fun is anymore. There's just noise, balloons and lots of bright colors. Someone makes a speech and everyone applauds because it's the thing to do. And everyone stays because that's also the thing to do. That's the Convention in a nutshell.

What the Democratic National Convention, 2012 edition, is really meant to accomplish is create a narrative where Obama lost, not because of the economy, but because he committed to liberal values, because he went all out on gay marriage, abortion and illegal immigration, and liberals failed to back him up. The story will not be that the election was a referendum on economics, but a way for the white majority to disenfranchise the voices of feminists, gays and minorities. It is the story that they will carry into their battle to retake Congress in 2014 and their attack on the White House in 2016.