My name is jimmy carter, i am running for president. [applause] tonight, tonight i have some good news for you. We will have a democrat in the white house in 1977. Ladies of the convention, probably i present before you the name of jimmy carter as the party, of the democratic the next president of the United States. Election 1976, the Democratic National convention. Analystt is political richard scanlon. Richard inis is washington, with me are professor Howard Penniman and mr. Stephen hess of the brookings and touche and. We want to discuss the Democratic Convention. We will do the Republican Convention at a later time when that meeting has been finished. Before we do either of the detailed discussions we have to spend a few minutes talking about the basic purpose of the nominating convention. One has said these are real ideological struggles told by circuses. Penniman, beyond that, how can we briefly describe the cosession of American Convention . Convention national is the nominating