Thursday, September 28, 2006
Will This Work?
The Republicans have chosen the Twin Cities as the site of their 2008 National Convention. One of their motivations? To try to lure voters in the midwest. I quite like the Twin Cities, but can the site of a convention possibly have the sort of ripple effect that will cause voters in Iowa to say "I was on the fence, but now that they are meeting in Minnesota, I must vote Republican!"? I lived 75 miles south of the cities for two years and can say with reasonable assurance that the impact will be minimal, so color me dubious. The Democrats had narrowed their choices to Minneapolis-St. Paul as well, in addition to New York and Denver. Don't be surprised if the Dems don't follow the same faulty logic and match the GOP's move with the decision to hold their dog and pony show in Colorado (which from an image perspective might be better than New York for them anyway, even if it will be unlikely to win any voters in the Plains or Mountain states.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
Well, 2004 NYC was out of arrogant bravado, but the Midwest might be one of the few areas that is less solidly out of play than any other in the long run. Blue gets the East and the West, Red gets the Southeast and much of the Southwest. While I've observed that the rust belt has been pretty heavily mired in anti-Bush/anti-Republican-isms, the Ohio that took the electoral college was just a couple of states away from MN. Plus Al Franken will have a cow.
Even Chicago has always seemed socially conservative to me in ways that no comparably large U.S. city can touch, regardless of the veneration of the legendary Democratic party machine there.
I think there is some symbolism effect through the location of a convention. But the more practical effect is that it plays to the vanity of operatives in the area, and sends a large number of party bigwigs to the Midwest during an election campaign too. It will have an effect in energising the party machine, I'd have thought.
MUL and Ken make great points. There is a lot of symbolism, there is a lot of pragmatism, and there is the hope of a bump locally, regionally, nationally. The midwest is fully in play, so maybe a little bump will make a difference, but I am still skptical.
dcat
You all are much more schooled in politics than I am (I am but a hunmble biochemist) so I ask you guys, what would be the disadvantages for the democratic party to have their convention in New Orleans?
The party that wins will be the party that has screech as their keynote speaker.
One huge disadvantage would be considering whether New Orleans has the necessary infrastructure post-Katrina to maintain something as large as a convention. The other very big disadvantage is that they capitalize on pessimism and outrage rather than hope.
SCREECH FOR PRESIDENT!
If there's a backfire in both considerations, such as electrical blackouts that don't keep angry speakers consistently well-lit under bright lights, then it's a disaster.
Hope you liked my subtle, mid-post subliminal message.
Thunderstick --
The symbolic upside would be huge. the problem would lie with infrastructure. Even in 2008 the dems would likely have huge worries that New orleans would be incapable of staging such an event, though wouldn't it be fantastic if they just did it and trusted that it would work out?
I would expect that Screech might end up being Kinky Friedman's press secretary if Friedman can pull off the gubernatorial upset here in Texas.
dcat
MUL --
You are right -- New Orleans would offer a lot of opportunities for speakers to vent their spleens and show that righteous outrage that tend not to resonate outside of the faithful. Still, done right, it could be a coup.
dcat
I think if the GOP does the Twin Cities, then the Dems could put up a good show down in the Windy City. It's close enough in proximity, a great Democratic stronghold, Illinois has recovered from a recent conviction, I believe, of a GOP governor - and as we agree - it keeps the political battleground alongside the geographical battleground.
Plus my impression is that the Midwestern Democrats are offering good leadership, or at least leadership that is more savvy of domestic political realities than on the West coast, and less afraid to take the administration's security credentials to task than they are on the East Coast. For whatever reason that people love Obama, they do, and Feingold is the least supine and one of the more articulate critics of Bush. I'm sure his fight w/Arlen Specter, however, among others, highlights his argumentative personal nature, which likely relegates him to the populist Howard Dean type of role, if anything. A useful role provided the Dems can provide enough strong and attractive personalities to yet counterbalance that.
By the way, I wouldn't feel too intimidated to offer an opinion on politics if I were The Thunderstick. After all, Cirroc was nothing but a simple caveman, and look at all the cases he won!
tee hee -- "a simple caveman." In a way, so too is the Thunderstick.
dcat
Post a Comment