W. James Antle III took a trip to Harvard Law School for “ConConCon” — a conference on a hypothetical constitutional convention.

Article V of the Constitution outlines two ways with which it can be amended. The first — which Americans are most familiar with — is through congressional act, requiring approval by two thirds of both houses, and subsequent ratification by 75% of the states. The second, alternative means to start the process is by constitutional convention, if legislatures of two thirds of the states request it.

Esoteric as this may seem, it’s not a purely academic concern. Conservatives and libertarians have occasionally dusted off this oft-ignored provision of Article V as a possible way of reasserting constitutional limits on the federal government. Congress may not be eager to advance amendments that curb its own power, but an Article V convention called by the state legislatures should have no such compunctions.

Rod Dreher says that Herman Cain’s campaign is circus-like, making a joke of the American political system in a crucial time for the country, when crises of historical proportions loom overhead. It’s not that Cain is a bad guy, Dreher says, but he’s in far over his head when it comes to presidential politics.

Will the 2012 elections see a credible third party shake-up? Roger Stone, a long-time GOP strategist, thinks so. In a conversation with The Daily Caller, Stone suggests that nominating a perceived moderate like Mitt Romney could cause some Tea Party support to shift from the GOP to the Libertarian Party.

Daniel Larison writes that though some now try to view TARP through more rose-colored lenses than they once did, it remains “an economic disaster for everyone except its immediate beneficiaries, which include writers who have made themselves scribes to the oligarchs.”