Reply #30: Politics AND Logistics

[FightinNewDem]

The choice of a convention site is ultimately political, but remember, logistics are a consideration as well.

A city hosting the convention must have a very large supply of hotel rooms. The 1988 Atlanta convention was a fiasco because several delegations were housed twenty-five miles from the convention hall. This requirement probably nixes Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, and possibly St. Louis and Charlotte.

The host city also needs a very large convention hall. The FleetCenter (now Banknorth Garden) in Boston was barely large enough, and it holds about 18,000 for a Celtics or Bruins game. Same thing with Madison Square Garden. This would give an advantage to a city with a dome, such as New Orleans or San Antonio.

In addition, there need to be off-site convention hall space to accomodate media facilities, security situation rooms, and adjunct events run by groups like the DLC, Campaign for America's Future, PDA, etc. Those of you who were in Boston last year will remember how the hotels in Copley Square and the Hynes Convention Center were filled with all manner of side shows.

Finally, the city should be relatively compact. A complaint I heard about the 2000 convo in Los Angeles (which is the only one since '92 I have missed) was that LA is just too damn spread out and difficult to navigate. Boston, NYC, and Chicago all had real downtowns and excellent public transit systems. This is an area where NOLA and San Antonio have some advantages.

My early hunch is that the choice is going to come down to New Orleans, San Antonio and Denver, which had very good bids for both 2000 and 2004. Cleveland is a wild card, as well.