Thursday, May 01, 2008

Lack of Nominee no problem for DNCC

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

Even though we're less than 4 months from the convention, the DNCC isn't worried that a nominee hasn't been chosen.

Democratic National Convention Committee spokeswoman Natalie Wyeth said even if the nominee were not known until July 6 — the day before the DNCC begins its move-in and build-out at the Pepsi Center — it wouldn't pose a logistics problem.

"One thing to remember is, from election cycles, we never know when a presumptive nominee will secure it, and so we have to be ready at the start of the nomination cycle," Wyeth said. "We started the planning process early. It was six months (earlier than) any convention committee had ever opened up its offices in the host city."

The roll-out by convention planners has been steady since their arrival in Denver last year.

Hotels for delegates are assigned, a paperless reservation system has been put into place and organizers have something else in their favor — the convention's Aug. 25 start date is about a month later than that of some previous conventions. The 2004 convention, for example, was July 26-29.

Dan Slater, a Colorado superdelegate who was at the conventions in 2000 and 2004, said the nominee's involvement in planning grows leading up to the event.

He said, for instance, he has the Colorado state sign that marked where the delegation was supposed to be on the convention floor and noted it had been painted three times because the Kerry campaign kept changing its mind about the color scheme. - RMN

And while it may be 100 degrees in August, right now downtown Denver is in near white-out conditions. Snow on May 1st? One thing people always say about Colorado weather is if you don't like the weather... wait a few hours.



Dan Slater, mentioned in the above article, has a blog called DemNotes. It's worth a look if you haven't seen it already. Our friend Mr. Super also has a blog. If you know of any other blogs run by supers let us know.