21.   Congress is scheduled to start its August recess Friday so that members can rest and participate in the upcoming party presidential nominating conventions.

22.   County delegates go to a state convention to choose delegates that go on to the two national party conventions in the summer.

23.   Day-to-day operations will be handled by Donald Fowler, a former state chairman from South Carolina and an old hand at running party conventions.

24.   Each fourth year brings the ritual ballyhoo of party conventions.

25.   For Ford, that means saying yes when a fellow Democrat, Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, asks him to speak at his state party convention.

26.   For months leading to the party conventions, Bush clung to a small but unmistakable lead.

27.   For the first time in American political history, the two main party conventions will each have their shadows.

28.   Four years ago, Riordan pulled the city from consideration for the party conventions because Los Angeles was consumed with rebuilding itself from the Northridge Earthquake.

29.   Frumencio Reyes, a Gore delegate to the state party convention, said local voters often ask him what is happening to the party.

30.   For the first time in his experience, said Manafort, the communications operation at a party convention is larger than the political organization.