Dueling Conventions

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

We've digressed before over to St. Paul in the first week of September. The GOP has reserved 16,000 hotel rooms to host what they claim will be 45,000 attendees. I'm not sure whether that means they will be encouraging unmarried (to each other) attendees to share rooms, or whether even they realize their attendance expectations are wildly optimistic.

We know about the Senators that don't "have time" to attend, like Liddy Dole, and the Senators who won't be allowed to come, like Chuck Grassley. They can't get the projected number of volunteers. And it seems that there are more than 7,000 potential attendees that have committed to being elsewhere. No, not at the beach for that one last shot at summer, nor home getting their kids ready for the first day of school. Rather, across town at the Ron Paul "Rally for the Republic". Tickets went on sale, and they have put a counter up on the site, and the last time I looked, they were up to 7,390 attendees. The Paul site says that it is a "clear call to the Republican Party to return to its roots." I know we like to talk here about the professional polls, but gee-whiz, when the party faithful won't show up....perhaps this is a sign the pollsters have missed.

Probably that means that people who actually have committed to attending won't have to share hotel rooms, if even the pictures insinuate that perhaps they want to....