List of cities invited to bid for the 2008 convention

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Andre at Georgia Politics Unfiltered has published the list of cities invited to bid for the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Interestingly, there are 35 cities, not the 33 mentioned in news reports:

Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Memphis, Miami, Miami-Dade County, FL, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, OR., St Louis, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, DC.

The list is basically the same as the 35 cities on the 2004 invitee list, with the following differences:

• In 2004, Minneapolis and St. Paul were both on the list (which made no sense), but only Minneapolis is on the 2008 list.
• Miami-Dade County, FL is on only the 2008 list

I'm not sure why Miami-Dade County was listed separately from Miami unless the Miami Beach Convention Center (Which hosted Rep 68 and 72 and Dem 72), is planning a bid separate from a American Airlines Arena (convention)/Miami Arena (workspace) bid. Note that a Miami Beach Convention Center bid by itself would probably fail, as the DNC has a stated preference for a "bowl" configuration (i.e., a basketball arena) for the convention itself. The last Democratic convention actually held in a typical convention center was the '84 convention in San Francisco, and the logisitics cause a much smaller seating capacity.

Some interesting omissions from the list:

• Anaheim: As noted, Anaheim hosted suites at both '04 conventions pushing an '08 bid, but there's been no news about a potential Anaheim bid since then. I'm sure if Anaheim still wanted to bid the fact that they're not on the current list wouldn't prevent them. But the Miami/Miami-Date separate invitations would imply that Anaheim is not covered by the LA invitation, so it will be interesting to watch what happens here.
• The biggest metropolitan area which was not invited to bid (not counting areas which are suburbs of larger areas) was Tampa. Tampa has hosted Super Bowls - why no invitation?

The deadline to accept or decline invitations to bid is January 13, so we will know in a few weeks which cities are serious.