The invitation says it all. The opening-night party for the Democratic Convention promises an extravaganza of 'comedy and blues'. Comedy and Blues. A more fitting metaphor for the four days in Denver would be hard to find. The unintentional hilarity of it all. The violent wresting of egos, the puffed up self-importance, the rivalries, and the squabbles over seating, the misdirected party invites, the drunken brawls.

The Chicago Night invite – amongst the most coveted of the scores of high-prestige parties that are taking place in Denver during the convention – features Illinois congressman Rahm Emmanuel and senator Dick Durbin, kitted out a la Blues Brothers, but looking more like a couple of Al Capone's henchmen. If a less genial pair of political enforcers exists, I wouldn't want to meet them.

The legendary Second City comedy troupe, which has spawned comedy legends from Bill Murray to Mike Myers, will perform a 'greatest hits' of political sketches that will skewer Democratic heavyweights such as Jesse Jackson, Al Gore… and Bill and Hillary Clinton. The Clintons are not expected to attend. They have it seems, bigger fish to fry.

When it comes to sneaking a glimpse at the American psyche, there is no better vantage point than a political convention. To witness Dick Cheney dancing is to witness a sight so surreal as to provide a comprehensive rebuttal to the notion of intelligent design. Likewise, the spectacle of 300lb delegates sporting fake elephant trunks on their noses and American flags planted firmly in each ear. Even the rabidly politically correct Democratic gatherings conspire to confound the most objective spectator; during the 2004 gathering in Boston, this reporter witnessed a group of anti-war protesters beat an anti-abortion protester to a near pulp.

Then there is the cattle stampede of celebrities who treat the convention like a dress rehearsal for the Oscars. (No self-respecting celebrity would be seen dead at a Republican Convention.) And, indeed, the two events have much in common, hours of tedious speeches, punctuated by spats and enlivened by displays of naked rivalry.

'Do you know who I am'

Rarely is the phrase 'Do You Know Who I Am?' heard more often and to such negligible effect than at this massive train wreck at the junction of Washington and Hollywood. They may leave every convention feeling disillusioned and dissed, but every four years the celebrities keep coming back and this year the celebrity count is expected to peak. But many of Hollywood's A-list will be singing for their supper; Ben Affleck is hosting a poker tournament. Oprah will be raising funds and spiritual awareness and possibly the dead. Kanye West is performing at an all-expenses-paid bash sponsored by the music industry, while Willie Nelson will be hitching his bio-diesel wagon at the magnificent Red Rock arena.

And if the 2004 Convention is anything to go by, Leonardo Di Caprio will be sweeping up and sorting recyclables after the marquees have emptied. Madonna, Oprah, Wyclef Jean, Spike Lee, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Ed Norton, Gwyneth Paltrow, George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Matt Damon and Scarlett Johannsen are all slated to attend, alongside old stalwarts such as Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Michael Douglas and Warren Beatty. Once again, the Republicans will have to make do with Bo Derek (who uses the Republican Convention to peddle her line of dog shampoos) and Chuck Norris.

For Obama, the celebrity line-up isn't without its risks, given the jabs that been landed by McCain of late about his all-style, no-substance, political pop-star persona. But celebrity sells, and for Obama, that's the trade off. And the Clinton soap-opera and celebrity sightings notwithstanding, nobody doubts, in Hollywood parlance, that the money shot will be on Thursday night when Obama takes to the open skies to deliver his nomination acceptance speech before a crowd of 85,000 people at the aptly named Mile High Stadium. Provided of course, it doesn't rain.

Back on the comedy and blues theme, the 2008 Democratic Convention promises to be an epic event. And the unintentional purveyor of both will be Hillary Rodham Clinton, who it seems, has still not entirely grasped that she is not the star of the show. Not surprising since, courtesy of a compromise that has been hammered out by Obama and the Clintons, this convention will be, by common consent, All About Hillary.

The Hillary Clinton show

Hillary Clinton's keynote convention speech will be preceded by a Hillary Clinton video made by the same production team that brought us the soft focus tear-jerker The Boy From Hope which was unveiled before Bill Clinton accepted the nomination at the 1992 convention.

The key difference of course being that Bill won his party's nomination and Hillary did not. Not that you would know it over at camp Clinton where the frenetic denial that gripped Clinton on the night she was forced to concede Barack Obama had won the Democratic Party nomination continues, apparently unchecked.

After showing her video of herself, lest there is any doubt about who she is, Hillary Clinton will be introduced by her daughter Chelsea Clinton. Thereafter, she will deliver a keynote speech. The following night, Bill Clinton, introduced by his wife and daughter, will also deliver a keynote speech. So many Clintons, so little time.

As a former senior Clinton staffer who defected to the Obama camp observed to this reporter; "With the Clintons, it's all about the Clintons, all of the time." The Clinton speeches, receptions, parties and fundraisers will culminate in the Clinton-engineered piece de resistance; the placing of Hillary Clinton's name in nomination alongside Barack Obama's, followed by a roll call ballot that will allow Clinton's 1,890 delegates to declare themselves for their candidate.

After the roll call, she is expected to hand her delegates over to Obama, although gallows humour abounds in the Obama camp about battallions of marauding Clinton supporters storming the convention centre, Bastille-style.

Barring a Clinton coup, Obama – who won 2,254 delegates – will be declared the Democratic nominee. The assessment amongst party elders is that Clinton, having had her pound of flesh and her aeon in the sun, may finally step aside and shut down the Clinton soap opera for the time being.

The roll call may inject some made-for-TV drama into an otherwise turgid event, but there are concerns that Clinton's much-hyped catharsis could turn into an ugly bloodletting that will lay bare the divisions within the party. Veteran Democratic strategists such as Tad Devine are shrugging the roll call aside, suggesting that a political star of Obama's stature can afford to be gracious.

Others are more blunt. "The end result of this will be to confirm one thing," a former Clinton staffer-turned-Obama aide says. "She lost."

But the push by Clinton and her supporters for what they are calling 'formal recognition' of her campaign's achievements has exasperated senior Democrats such as DNC Chairman Howard Dean and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who are furious that the Clintons are still haggling with Obama.

Cloak and dagger

The cloak-and-dagger, behind-the-scenes tensions between the two camps have been an endless source of fascination here, often eclipsing coverage of Obama's campaign itself, much to the ire of the Obama spokespeople, who become testy at the mere mention of the Clintons.

And so the Clintons continue to play out their personal psychodramas on a public stage. The Republicans are delighted; they have been sending more than a dozen emails a day to reporters suggesting talking points along the lines of 'If Barack Obama can't stand up to Hillary Clinton, how will he stand up to Vladimir Putin?'

It may be a stretch, but it touches a raw nerve with Obama strategists. An Obama spokesman told the Sunday Tribune that Obama won't arrive in Denver until Wednesday; the implication being that he doesn't consider the Clintons' speeches sufficiently keynote to attend. If there is a snub in there somewhere, it is buried beneath the turf he has conceded.