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Editor’s note: Daily News columnist Brent Batten is attending the Democratic National Convention in Denver and then the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. Look for his reports daily on naplesnews.com and in the Daily News.

This should be fun.

The Democratic National Convention beginning Monday in Denver promises a week of unpredictability and surprises.

Unlike the party’s conventions in 2000 and 2004, in which the particulars were laid out weeks in advance, this year’s affair has an air of uncertainty about it, says Chuck Mohlke, a Naples market researcher, long-time party activist and member of the Democratic National Committee.

You can trace the origins of the change back to primary season, when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were in a tight race for the party’s nomination.

The process dragged on longer than in previous years, forcing the eventual nominee to focus on winning primaries into June, when Clinton finally conceded the race. Those are weeks and months that past nominees used to choreograph a convention to their liking.

The drawn-out nomination process also put off Obama’s selection of a vice presidential candidate.

Naming a running mate two days before the convention starts doesn’t leave much time to print placards. “Obama-Candidate’s Name Here in ‘08!”

The slow start carried over into scheduling. Only in recent days has the lineup of speakers for the four-day convention fallen into place.

The Obama and Clinton camps had to fashion a way to include former President Bill Clinton, whose rhetoric toward Obama during and after the primaries has ranged from less-than-effusive to downright critical.

More importantly, they’ve had to come up with a way of recognizing Hillary Clinton’s primary run, which, depending on how you slice it, arguably garnered more votes than Obama’s.

While Clinton has been placed prominently on Tuesday’s list of speakers, as of Friday, it still hadn’t been determined how her delegation will be treated.

She could, in her Tuesday speech, simply ask that she not be nominated and that her delegates vote for Obama, Mohlke said.

Or, her name could be placed in nomination Wednesday night, with a role call of states casting votes for her.

“How is the inclusion of Sen. Clinton’s name in the nominating process going to be handled? Nobody knows that,” Mohlke said Thursday.

When he arrives in Denver, he will take up residence at the Red Lion Hotel. The Red Lion is one of three hotels hosting the Florida delegation, another oddity in what has been an odd political season.

It wasn’t even clear if Florida would have a place in the nominating process until May 31 when the party’s rules committee decided each delegate would get only half a vote as punishment for the state’s advancing its primary date from March to January, ironically in an effort to give the state more clout in picking presidential candidates.

Thus, Florida’s 211 delegates were late invitees to the party, which will include more than 4,000 delegates and 15,000 members of the media.

On Aug. 3, Obama asked the party’s credentials committee to restore full votes to Florida’s delegates, as well as those from Michigan, which pulled a similar maneuver.

However, Democratic delegates from Florida and Michigan will get full voting rights, the national convention’s credentials committee ruled Sunday. The full 2008 Democratic National Convention was expected to ratify the committee decision by acclamation Monday.

Florida delegates will meet each morning at the Red Lion to hear a litany of speakers, which in keeping with the theme of uncertainty, hadn’t been set a few days before the convention’s start.

In conventions past, Florida, a key swing state, has attracted high-profile morning speakers including movie stars, members of Congress and nominees’ spouses.

The suspense won’t be confined to the convention hall.

Dozens of groups are planning protests in Denver with planning being the operative word. A schedule of demonstrations is posted online and the city has designated protest zones where they are allowed to occur. Will the groups adhere to the rules or seek to employ civil disobedience as a tool of dissent?

Denver police also are keeping things close to their protective vests.

The department has received a $50 million federal grant for security for the event but, to the chagrin of civil rights groups who wonder just what the police have up their sleeves, won’t say exactly how the money is being used.

Among the devices rumored to be at police disposal is one that emits a low frequency vibration alleged to cause stomach discomfort in its target. The effect, assuming it even exists, has led it to be nicknamed the “poop cannon.”

There was a day when political conventions were full of intrigue. Deals were brokered and presidential candidates picked after brutal floor battles and multiple ballots all while protests raged outside. Those days are gone, with the nominee a foregone conclusion and dissidents relegated to secure “free-speech zones.”

But Denver promises to bring back at least a bit of spontaneity.

“Anything can happen,” Mohlke said.

Anything?

Well, no, Mohlke admits. The scenario pundits have raised, where Clinton is nominated as a courtesy to her followers and then somehow garners enough votes to steal the nomination is outside the realm of reality.

“That’s just not a sensible view. That’s not going to happen,” he said.

Still, this should be fun.

I just hope I don’t get hit with the poop cannon.

E-mail Brent Batten at bebatten@naplesnews.com