It wasn’t that long ago that Democrats were the party of mayhem, far more likely than Republicans to be practitioners of disorganized infighting and public disputes that made for entertaining political theater but did little to engender public confidence in their ability to run the country.

Their campaigns, debates and conventions tended to reflect that free-for-all mentality, from the 1968 convention in Chicago to a crowded stage in Hanover in 1984, when Sen. John Glenn accused former Vice President (and eventual presidential nominee) Walter Mondale of espousing "gobbledygook," which caused Mondale to shoot out of his chair and claim "Point of personal privilege!"

That was the same campaign in which Mondale shot down Sen. Gary Hart’s campaign of "new ideas" by asking, "Where’s the beef?" – a reference to a popular Wendy’s hamburger ad of the time.

Republican campaigns, meanwhile, have tended to be fairly sedate by comparison. If their divisions were every bit as deep as Democrats, they were perhaps better at keeping a lid on it and preserving the appearance of what Ronald Reagan referred to as "the 11th commandment" – defined as "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican."

That all went out the window in this election cycle with the arrival of Donald Trump, who emerged as a kind of political Henny Youngman, throwing out one-liners and insults and receiving them in turn.

Still, we would have thought that with the nomination sewed up, the convention in Cleveland taking place this week would run like a typical well-oiled machine.

That proved not to be the case on the first day, when a floor fight ensued over whether delegates could vote for a candidate other than Trump on the first ballot. There was lots of yelling and rancor on display, which is hardly typical convention fare in this day and age.

That was Monday afternoon. On Monday night, Trump’s wife, Melania, gave a speech in which she praised her husband, but that message was lost in allegations that she plagiarized parts of a speech Michelle Obama gave at the Democratic convention in 2008.

As Politico reporter Paul Thrush cleverly wrote, "Trump is an apprentice at running a convention."

Maybe so, but it’s also entertaining political theater, even if it makes for bad politics. Such, it seems, has been the norm this election season.

And to think the convention has two more days to go.