That wasn’t too bad, being the center of the world for four days. We could have had a nice golf tournament in that time, but then Barak Obama is the Tiger Woods of politics.

What lasting footprint remains is unclear, as well as what we’re going to do with all the fencing and concrete barriers and security scanners. Not much use for those during the dull, daily life of a town whose main meal is trail mix.

Did we show the world we are not a bunch of rubes? The truth is, the world does not care.

There were little jokes about thin air and oysters, the mayor’s last name, the usual, but those who came and those who watched know what they knew about Denver before. This is the place that gave the world an omelet and the boot.

We were all part of the show, and inconvenienced for it, not to dismiss the money that came to town with the circus. If we could get something like this every year, we could fix a few more potholes.

Why one venue was not enough in which to do nothing remains a mystery, and only a natural disaster or a Super Bowl parade should shut down an interstate highway.

We may never look at the Pepsi Center the same again, returned now to its regular functions, except maybe when viewing an Arena Football League game. The similarities to a political convention are obvious; sporadically entertaining while not quite the real thing. Still, close enough to wish it meant more than it does.

I know I shall never enter the Nuggets practice court again without seeing bloggers scurrying to and from the buffet table, not bothering with napkins, perspective or wisdom.

The great national media that descended is all part of the same traveling spectacle, almost indistinguishable from the story they were covering.

The Democrats, and the Republicans next, are a bunch of folks basically selling snake oil and networks and cable and radio and newspapers and bloggers all help them sell it.

The tipoff is that the Pepsi Center was decked out to look like a Las Vegas showroom, without bare breasted women in tall feathered headgear—though truthfully I could not see the entire hall from my seat—but still strutting, posing and hustling in one great gaggle of self-promotion.

The poor delegates are only props, having no job at all to do, except to compete for the silliest hat. Every speaker reads from a giant teleprompter, doing talking-point duty, speaking not to the convention but to voters on the other end of the camera.

Half were campaigning for themselves, so even Barak Obama was used.

CNN boasted that it had the only booth on the actual convention floor, as if location meant better insight or wiser commentary. It was like teacher’s pet sticking his tongue out at Fox News, which ought to have more than that stuck at it.

In case your network was doing something else at the time, the most entertaining line came from Ohio governor Ted Strickland who said that George W. Bush came to office on third base and stole second. Sports images and politics, remember?

Real moments, such as the appearance of a gravely ill Ted Kennedy, only confirm that even the participants buy into this total nonsense.

I was reminded of a media session at a Winter Olympics. The suits in charge were being grilled relentlessly by the few Olympic writers, each side addressing the other by their first names. Why is the U.S. not doing better, Bill?

Why do they care so much, I wondered. And the answer is because without each other they are both out of jobs. The media chews, swallows and sometimes spits out. The newsmakers make no news but use pretty wrapping. We mistake choreography for democracy.

By the time things got to Obama’s Invesco Field speech Thursday night, an authentic moment of history, the message was much less important than the fact that his would be the last one.

So, here he is, America, and Denver had very little to do with it. We were the plastic bag used to carry the groceries home, or maybe the paper bag since it’s the Democrats.

Politics do make strange bedfellows, a warning to change the sheets. And how strange it is that before you collect the voice of the people, you have to go into lockdown.

Here’s the one conclusion that can be reached. Choosing a presidential candidate is as ugly as making sausage. Of course, you can freeze the sausage.