Truth-Telling Audience

In Steve Coll's The New Yorker article, "Conventional Wisdom," he provides his comments and opinions about the differences between the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention.

Along with the rhetoric and plans for the future, he states that the audience was a good indicator of the true voters for these political parties. Coll states: "If the Conventions retain any authenticity, it lies in the group portraits that they offer of the parties’ activists." 

Although the Conventions may have lost their authenticity from the days where the party candidates were actually chosen at the Conventions, there is authenticity in the people who support the parties.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2012/09/17/120917taco_talk_coll