Go to enough political events, and you'll hear it: "Young Conservatives go to conventions to get drunk, Young Liberals go to get [lucky] and Young New Democrats go to get pamphlets." I'm not sure it's accurate: Most Liberals, for instance, are perfectly happy to settle for getting drunk.

Outwardly, at least, attendees at this weekend's national Liberal gathering would claim to have a higher calling. And some of the policy resolutions they'll vote on - ones calling for the legalization of pot and the decriminalization of the sex trade, for instance - are admittedly intriguing. Others, including the transfer of non-renewable offshore resources to the provinces and a guarantee of 14 House of Commons and five Senate seats for aboriginals, range from the impractical to the absurd. But all told, they'd do much to create a thoroughly invigorating debate about the direction of this country - if, that is, we lived in a fantasyland in which any of this actually mattered.

It may seem cynical to dismiss out-of-hand the better efforts of the Liberals' various idealistic riding association types to create a better Canada. But attend a few Liberal conventions, and you'll become a cynic, too.

Of the couple of thousand delegates converging on Ottawa this weekend, a minority will actually expect to influence national policy. The rest will be there to make connections, promote leadership aspirants of choice and consume copious amounts of free beer and cocktail shrimp.

It's not that they're all shameless opportunists and hacks - not all of them, at any rate. Most probably went to their first convention expecting they'd get a chance to Make A Difference. But unless they're hopeless romantics, they eventually realize that they have two options - give it a rest with the idealism, or give it a rest with the Liberal Party.

Not coincidentally, the party that is perpetually in power is the one that long ago stopped pretending it's run by anyone other than its elites. It is pollsters and strategists and (if we want to take the cynicism to an even higher level) lobbyists who decide the Liberals' positions on everything from missile defence to marijuana - not how Joe from Moose Jaw or Sally from Thunder Bay vote on policy resolutions put forward by the University of British Columbia's campus club.

The New Democrats, and perhaps the Conservatives (we'll know better once they finally have their long-awaited policy conference later this month do things differently. But if Liberals have compromised their voices in exchange for being close to the corridors of power, members of other parties have compromised their proximity to the corridors of power to retain their voices.

Is it possible that a party's membership could avoid either compromise? Perhaps, if a particularly pragmatic membership, representative of the population at large, came to a convention with its finger on the pulse of the nation and drafted policy accordingly. But the reality is that few star-struck party activists look at issues the way the average, increasingly disengaged voter does - and successful strategists know that. So they use gatherings such as this weekend's to present policy forums as window-dressing. Then, that tedious bit of business out of the way, they head to the backrooms to figure out what they'll actually do to press the electorate's buttons.

Before they do that, of course, they'll head to the hospitality suites to check out the real action. So for the more idealistic of Liberal delegates this weekend, the best strategy is probably to do likewise. Loosened up by a couple of free beverages, that strategist standing next to you might even be willing to listen to what you have to say.