TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- The conventional wisdom about national political conventions is that they have outlived their purpose.Once, they were the place where the parties actually picked their candidates for president and vice president. But for at least 30 years now, conventions have been the place where the nominees, long since selected, try to bind up their party's internal wounds and reach out over the heads of the delegates to woo the less partisan voters who usually decide the election.They have become the largest, most expensive infomercials in human experience.So why are we even still having them?As the parties convene, there will be much chattering that conventions don't matter anymore, that they are a waste of money (some of it taxpayer money) and should be abandoned. \Total anachronisms. Parties should scrap `em