I seem to recall a time when each party gave the other a break during convention time; when one party held it’s convention, the other would tone down its events and let the other party have its day. Not today’s GOP:

Democrats won’t have the show to themselves next week during their convention.

The GOP says it’s planning a rival post near the Democratic National Convention and will put on speeches by prominent GOP opponents including former presidential nominee and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Republicans haven’t said exactly where they’ll set up, but party leaders say they’ll have an arena for rival speeches near downtown’s Pepsi Center, where Democrats gather Monday.

Speakers include Tuesday Romney, a former rival to GOP nominee John McCain. Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said Romney, considered a potential vice presidential choice for McCain, will speak in Denver before heading to Nevada on Wednesday. Romney handily won Colorado’s Republican presidential caucus in February.

At some time we apparently will be informed as to when and why Mitt Romney acquired the nickname “Tuesday.”

Seriously, however, this may not be new, but it is certainly an indicator of how the GOP is dragging down the election process, one step at a time. Not that this tactic is the worst of it–in fact, it’s about as mild as such tactics go. It seems almost innocuous compared to stuff like Corsi’s book of smears and its being propped up by right-wing organizations and heavily publicized by Fox News–a new tradition begun four years ago, and likely to continue from now on. The savagely negative campaign seems now a set right-wing feature, along with the covert email campaigns spreading disgusting innuendo. No, scheduling competing noise-making events during the Democratic convention (which the media will of course obligingly cover) is dirty pool, but pretty bland next to most new GOP tactics.

Still, it’s in the same general category, and simply reinforces what we’ve known for some time now: the GOP will do pretty much anything to win elections. “Ungentlemanly” is the least of the offenses.