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Some notes from Colorado Confidential on the DLC meeting meeting in Denver last week. Before we uncork the champagne, Mark Ivrey of the Brookings Institution put Denver’s chances into perspective. “Emotional responses, the weather and the scenery do not count into the decision to have the Democratic convention here,” the policy professional said. “It all has to do with media coverage, prime time TV, polling, Democratic strategy—and those other guys,” referring to the Republicans. “There will be a lot of things in play to determine the convention location,” asserted Ivery. One of those items may be how successful Colorado Democrats are 2006, House Speaker Andrew Romanoff noted. Denver may offer the background of majestic mountains and a promise of a Democratic stronghold in the West, but the decision to make this city the Democratic National Convention site could all boil down to a simple detail: when the East and West Coast voters sit down to watch TV.“The weather’s great,” chimed Mike O’Conner, former Deputy Mayor of Indianapolis. “It’d be fine with me to have the convention in Denver to get out of the humid Midwest.”
Decent article, until the last two paragraphs. First, unless the bottom falls out of only the Colorado Democratic party in November, whether a couple of races are lost will have no effect on the choice.
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Also, the time zone of the convention is totally irrelevant to the choice. The nominee will be starting his speech a few minutes after 10 Eastern time, regardless of whether his local time is 10 (New York), 9 (Minnesota), or 8 (Denver). In fact, I think the parties like having the convention out west. They can finish earlier in the evening, allowing for events/receptions/fundraisers after each evening's proceedings.
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10 comments:
I enjoyed reading this post--a potpourri of info. I had wondered about time zones, how that would play in. Thanks
Just as an interesting thing to throw in: if Denver does get the Convention, it could jumpstart a number of planned projects that are nearby the convention center/pepsi center (all along 14th St)...including a lot more hotel rooms. Denver could play that up if rooms are an issue.
From an article I saw in the Denver post...
"With the addition of 720 hotel rooms, 845 residences and 439 student beds scheduled by 2010 and many of the projects about to get underway"
http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_4055417
Dan - the timezone thing is kind of interesting if you're not used to it. I'm from the east, but when I was at the 1984 convention in San Francisco, it was weird having the convention end around 8:00 every night. Not to mention having the Today show start their live broadcast at 4 every day. They would then do a completely new version at 7 for the West Coast audience, as they could get more live interviews.
I gotta say, Denver is my favorite city. Matt, when is the DNC going to announce the winner? Will the press-release likely be broadcast on C-SPAN, CNN or MSNBC?
Winner should be announced in November or December. (GOP has said they will anounce early 2007). Only thing that could affect the timing is if the Dems want to go to Minneapolis/St. Paul or New York, and they think the GOP wants to go there also. I don't think either party is going to New York, but if either party wants to go to Minnesota, they might announce earlier to beat the other party to the city. Minneapolis/St. Paul has said that whichever party chooses them first gets them, and the other party will has to go elsewhere.
Matt, I don't know if I agree with your dismissal of the time zone issue. Buzz isn't always worth that much, but the buzz among DC Dems is that it's a big issue.
Having worked on three of these, the MSM get more and more pushy each time while covering less, so maybe they'll soon be disregarded...but they seem to dislike the mountain time zone to the point of acting like it doesn't exist. The previous comment about the Today Show raises one of several issues that make the nets prefer to be on the other side of the time shift. The other thing they've apparently been grousing about is having to reset from one convention to another only a week apart. If they had their druthers, they'd demand that both parties hold their events in the same city, in the same venue on this tight schedule.
I would bet that proximity to the midwest battleground would be a much bigger challenge to Denver though. That tour down to New Orleans to arrive at the start of the GOP Convention seems rather appealing.
Personally, I hope it's Denver and I bet they'd throw a great event -- Mayor Hickenlooper seems like a very smart guy, with a strong team around him.
Thanks for the site - it's a great resource.
Anonymous - I'd love to know where your buzz is from - drop me an email.
The networks are not going to sway what city the parties choose for their convention. For starters, they send a lot less people now then they used to, and they're going to provide their few hours of coverage no matter what. It just doesn't make sense to pick a city based on whether the nets will be happy or not.
As to the back-to-back conventions, I'm hoping this works in the Dems favor. The Democrats picked their week first, so it was the GOP that made them back-to-back. so the media should be mad at the GOP. Plus, the GOP goes second, and starts on Labor Day, so hopefully there will be a lot of tired and cranky media types arriving to cover the GOP convention.
The midwest thing is certainly an issue for after the convention, but I'm not sure how important it is. The '92 convention was in New York, but the bus trip went from PA right into Ohio and the midwest also. These things can be worked out.
And besides, there's a new invention you may have heard of called an airplane.
Go Denver.
With Romanoff supporting things like this: http://www.andrew-romanoff.org/ I guess he's become part & parcel of the whole Hillary/Lieberman clique...
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