On Thursday night, over 20,000 screaming, cheering Republicans will hail George W. Bush as their champion to take back the White House which his father lost to Bill Clinton and Al Gore eight years ago. Daddy will be somewhere in the background but not in a way that suggests George junior still needs him.
The convention will have been slowly building up to this orgiastic moment when tens of thousands of red, white and blue balloons will descend from the roof of the Union Center sports stadium on the enraptured Republicans hailing the man they believe should be, will be, the next president.
And they could well be right. The latest polls show Mr Bush stretching his lead over the Vice-President, Mr Al Gore, who is holidaying on an island in North Carolina and getting ready for his anointing at the Democratic Convention two weeks later.
The four days of the Republican Convention in the City of Brotherly Love have been plotted by the Bush campaign in minute detail. Little can happen to spoil its total predictability. Perhaps this is why over 40 per cent of Americans will not even bother to watch, according to recent polls. It is not like the old days when conventions really elected the presidential nominee and delegations from all the states cast vote after vote until a winner emerged from the smoke-filled rooms.
Now the presidential nominees are known months in advance as the winner emerges from the primary elections earlier in the year.
Mr Bush's acceptance speech after the 50 states have acclaimed him will be carefully scripted to reflect the "compassionate conservatism" which will distinguish him from the harsher Republican rhetoric which scared off independent and undecided voters in the last two elections.
But in case the hardcore Republicans are worried that the party has gone too soft on issues such as cutting taxes, gun control and abortion, Mr Bush will wheel out his recently selected running-mate, the former defence secretary, Dick Cheney, whom Mr Newt Gingrich has said is even more conservative than himself.
Mr Cheney, however, is an avuncular figure who could be the youthful-looking Mr Bush's father, although he is only five years older, at 59. Mr Cheney has also sought to sound a more moderate note as Democrats have homed in on his "extremist" voting record when in Congress.
The Bush team, known as "the Bushies", will be keeping a wary eye on Senator John McCain, who has not quite got over being beaten in the primaries after an exciting campaign which caught the country's imagination.
Most Republicans would love to have Mr McCain on the ticket as he showed how to attract independent and even Democratic voters by old-fashioned appeals to patriotism.
Mr McCain, a Vietnam war hero, will do his duty and proclaim his support for Mr Bush - his reward could be a cabinet post. But the maverick senator, who is travelling here with his own press entourage, also plans to address an "alternative convention" where he may let loose with more than party platform platitudes.
Meanwhile, on the streets of Philadelphia, thousands of young Americans, unhappy about how their country and the world is being run, will be seeking the attention of the 15,000 accredited media to air their grievances.
The city police under their Dublin-born chief, Commissioner John Timoney, are ready to prevent a rerun of Seattle last December where the meeting of the World Trade Organisation was disrupted and the city put under curfew.
Orderly protests will be allowed but any attempt to disrupt the convention or prevent the delegates from getting there will be quickly suppressed.
The same crusading groups plan to be in Los Angeles for the Democratic Convention, so they are not just picking on the Republicans.
Meanwhile, inside the Union Center sports stadium, each night's events will have a different theme and carefully selected speakers who will stick to the message that this is a more caring, compassionate Republican Party.
Tonight, for example, Mrs Laura Bush and Gen Colin Powell will speak about Mr Bush's proposals for expanding education and improving healthcare. Gen Powell is also in line for a top post in a Bush administration.
Tomorrow's theme will be foreign policy and security in the post-Cold War era and Wednesday will be about "Prosperity with a purpose" and assuring retirees that their pensions will be safe under a President Bush, despite what the Democrats say.
By Thursday night, delegates will have heard enough speeches and be ready for the moment they have been waiting for. Mr Bush better not disappoint them.