Ever tried to make a pair of pancakes, except you make the mistake of pouring the two disks of batter too large? And then they flow together so that you have one large, undifferentiated
mess that forces you to use a spatula to try to divide them right in half so your kids don't complain? No? Then you should have attended the supper-time debate here at the ANA
conference between Joe Trippi and Tony (whose last name slips my mind). If you did and had expected a spirited, partisan argument about the virtues and iniquities of political branding you
might have wished you'd ordered the pancakes.
Maybe it was the wine, but after a while I really could not tell who was arguing what. What might have started as a debate became a
casual discussion within five minutes. It's not that the content wasn't interesting, but the setting was wrong. It should have been held at 8 a.m. in a university lecture hall, not at a
post-conference fete. Attendees began drifting off after ten minutes. I know I did.