An American election lasts far too long, costs too much, and never fails to make perfectly sensible people look like utter fools. Convention customs may often be patronizing, boring, overacted, empty and insufferable. But they are OUR customs and they connect us to a common history. Our two political parties have known the best and the worst of times. And one way or another, it all lives in the collective memory of the system. The story of that history is the subject of the extraordinary montage of sounds collected here, many never before available on tape or record. Hear the voices and speeches of Theodore Roosevelt, Wendell Willkie, H.V. Kaltenborn predicting a Thomas Dewey victory. Dwight Eisenhower, Hubery Humphrey, Barry Goldwater and many more. Told by Robert Trout, the legendary CBS, NBC, and ABC broadcaster whose voice has reported every American political convention of the 20th Century since 1936; and perhaps one of the few men alive able to make sense of those most remarkable and persistent political contraptions, the Democratic and Republican parties.