05/09/2002 Archived Entry: "2004 Conventions"

I am a big follower of the determining of the convention dates, and the recent floater that the RNC is thinking of moving the GOP convention into September is intriguing to me. The dates, -- those starting Aug. 23, Aug. 30, or Sept. 6. The latter date would set up the convention for ending on with Sept. 11th, which falls on a saturday. The 9/11 convention in 2004 for the GOP is what I've been expecting all along.

Orlando, which earlier rejected the DNC's hand, now has rejected the GOP too, joining Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St. Paul and St. Louis who have declined the offer to host to the GOP convention. As far has a city having a GOP mayor that is still on the list, I don't know of any besides Charlotte and NYC. I think the former because the GOP seems petrified of Edwards being the Democratic nominee (Nashville for the Gore reasons), the latter for the obvious reasons.

Democrats have narrowed their list to five cities: Detroit, Baltimore, Boston, Miami and New York. Well, I know that the hard-core partisans want it in Miami, but I'm guessing no on that one, especially with their not having a GOP mayor, same with NYC. Boston would be my bet, Detroit a close second.

Here's a piece up about this with some hypothetical sites from a while ago on Astroworld. Once the dates and places are known, half the picture is complete, then I'll be waiting for the candidates to declare. Lieberman has said he would let it be known by the end of the year (probably not then-- unless with Gore again) and Dean will be in early 2003. Then probably Kerry, Edwards, and Gephardt to follow. TMac is saying 5 or 6 candidates, and those are the them.

Democrats might just have a brokered convention, so their having an early convention might be the way to mend the fences while brokering a nominee. As much as the TV and media dominate the cycle, I don't see why the Republicans having theirs would complicate matters. Cash is a notable advantage that the GOP would have. However, what about the Democratic bounce, now it would string out longer than a month before the Republicans would be able to respond with their own convention bounce. The GOP risk is that the Democrats maintain a solid month-long lead, which forces them to go negative during their convention, similar to 1992.