Come 3 a.m., the real Grand Ole Party won't be at the bar

Everyone's looking to squeeze as much green out of the convention as possible.

Kids with lemonade stands will be charging $9 the week the GOP rolls into town, with a 75-cent cup usage fee. At least they won't have to pay $2,500 for the honor of generating additional tax revenue, like the bars of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

If they want to, that is. Only three bars in St. Paul have applied to be open until 4 a.m., and some bar owners want the city to rebate the fee. Not waive them -- that would set a horrible precedent, apparently -- but hand back the check. Minus processing costs, perhaps.

You can understand their hesitance, but still: only three? You wonder how someone can't make $300 an hour serving conventioneers, who, if legend is correct, are all meaty grinning guys with a fez and a tie that lights up and says I LOVE MY WIFE BUT OH YOU KID, and spend their night away from home getting giggly-blotto in a dive with a peroxide blonde, telling her she hash to meet Harry, heesh the greatesht guy inna worl.

But those days are gone.

A few delegates might drop into a bar for a beer or a glass of wine, but come 3 a.m. you're not going to find many conventioneers who drove up from Kansas draped over a bar shouting "Set 'em up, Mac, I spent the afternoon hamming out a plank on the Ossetian situation, and that's thirsty work." Seriously: 4 a.m.? This isn't a convention of insomniac Mojito enthusiasts. People have come to nominate a president. I've been to GOP conventions: These are people who get up at 5 a.m.

Based on experience, I can tell you this about post-convention revelries:

Hey, guys, what's up tonight? Uh -- nothing. We, uh, thought we'd catch a drink across the street, then head back to the hotel. They have "Get Smart" on pay-per-view.

2. The bars that will be visited by a locust-like horde of journalists and other assorted parasites will not be the popular ones in the heart of town. Journalists want authentic places off the beaten path, and I expect that conventioneers will want the same. In Houston in '96 the entire press corps showed up at a biker bar in a bad, bad neighborhood; it was the sort of place where you were frisked for knives before you entered, and given one if you weren't carrying. What, are you stupid? Here. The rafters were hung with hundreds of bras, like scalps from a war. You expected to see a bald kid up in the rafters picking on a banjo. No one got beat up -- so many nerds, where to begin? We were all friends by the night's end, except for the guy George Will stabbed.

Kidding. Anyway, visitors will head to Nye's, or Lyle's, or the 400, or some hole-in-the-wall bars whose overwhelmingly odorous lavatories assures them they are having a genuine urban experience. Which brings us to our third and painful point:

3. Everyone will go to Minneapolis afterward. This is why nine Minneapolis bars have ponied up $2,500, and 19 other hotels and clubs have paid $100 to get extended hours. St. Paul is many wonderful unique things, but a nocturnal hot spot? You could hold a blindfolded archery contest downtown on Saturday night without risk of injury.

So the bar owners are probably right. What's the point. Of course, St. Paul could have tried; they could have waived the fee entirely -- imagine that! -- and pushed hard to keep people downtown. On the other hand, if you're out drinking until 4 a.m., you might not remember such odd details as the name of the city where you were. Minnepaul, St. Apolis, Bloomingdaledina - oh, whatever. My head hurts. Have we nominated a guy? We have?