New York site visit starts today

WE'VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com

As I write this, the Technical Advisory Committee for the 2008 Democratic National Convention is having dinner at Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s East 79th Street townhouse. Its just the first step in a three day visit, and the first visit of what should be four visits to the potential host cities: New York, Denver, Minneapolis and New Orleans. From the New York Observer:

The party starts Wednesday evening, when the national committee team arrives, trots through Central Park in hansom cabs and heads to Mayor Bloomberg’s townhouse for dinner. The next morning, the Democrats will convene for breakfast at Gracie Mansion, followed by a tour of Madison Square Garden, which would again host the convention, and 1 Penn Plaza, the neighboring high-rise where the convention’s offices would be. The visitors will break out into subcommittees to hear about security preparations from Police Commissioner Ray Kelly or to visit the city’s fanciest hotels, along with some of its humblest.

The show-off event will be the dinner Thursday at Top of the Rock, the newly opened restaurant on the top floor of Rockefeller Center, with some of the city’s leading political operatives and donors.

Friday morning, they will travel across the East River for breakfast at the Bridge Café, arguably the Manhattanest restaurant in Brooklyn, and, last but not least, a boat tour of the city’s waterways.

Pretty standard stuff for one of these things.

Jonathan Tisch, chairman of Loew's Hotels and co-chairman of the New York host committee for the Democratic National Convention makes the case for New York:

"For Democrats, it would be an opportunity to hold a convention in a place that understands diversity, opportunity and responsibility, all of which is part and parcel of the Democrats' message," Tisch said. "For Republicans, much the same, plus the fact that they had such success two years ago. They could come back and repeat it."

The Hotline notes that New York and Minneapolis, both bidding for both conventions, may be going in different directions:

New York City doesn't seem to be doing much to promote their [GOP] bid beyond a general "We Did In '04; We Can Do It Again" angle. That may change as the city's host committee wraps up. The convention wisdom, which we don't know enough to refute or endorse, holds that NY poo-bahs really want the '08 Dem convention, or both conventions. We'll see.

Keep your eye on Cleveland and Minneapolis-St. Paul... especially the latter. The GOP likes the pitch and location of the state and the mechanics of the Twin Cities bid has already impressed some senior GOPers.

With the conventions back-to-back, (and even if they weren't), both conventions can not be held in the same city. Unless both parties really want to go to the same city, it would not suprise me if there were some communication between the two parties and the cities, with a city deciding to withdraw one of their bids in order to focus on the other. I think this is likely to happen with New York and the GOP, with New York dropping out of the GOP process at some point. Minneapolis may get sensitive if both parties really want to go there.