KSTP has great video of Tim Kaine talking about Minneapolis' bid for the 2012 Democratic National Convention (unfortunately I can't embed it).
One highlight from the video is Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak getting a dig in on the other bid cities. He said "I will not mention that the only thing standing between Barack Obama's second exception speech and an unfortunate pool of sweat is Minnesota's great climate."
When asked about the possibility of the Metrodome being demolished for a new Vikings stadium he said there are other venues that are part of the mix and that there are a lot of different venue possibilities.
Kaine also said that the winner of the bid may come down to which state the Democrats need to win the most (There's still a chance Cleveland!).
Stories about Cleveland's bid to host the 2012 Democratic National Convention are few and far between. We never found out when their DNC visit was. So anytime I see a story that mention Cleveland and 2012 Convention in the same paragraph I'm going to post it.
Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern says Cleveland has a "great chance" to beat out three competing cities for the 2012 Democratic convention.
"We've got a great arena and we've got a great rebirth going on... We've got a great chance," he told WKYC's Tom Beres.
What does President Obama think about Cleveland as a city to launch his bid for a second term.
Redfern says, "The President indicated to me and the Democratic National Chairman has indicated to me that Cleveland would be a great choice and especially the chairman has indicated to me he would like Ohio if it's at all possible."
Redfern predictably argues Ohio is the most important of the states being considered.
"The electoral importance of this state cannot be put in words properly. We can lose North Carolina, we can lose Missouri, we can lose Minnesota but you can't lose Ohio," Redfern said. - WKYC
By authority of the Democratic National Committee, the National Convention of the Democratic Party is hereby scheduled to convene on September 3, 2012, in Location TBA, at an hour to be announced, to select nominees for the offices of President and Vice President of the United States of America, to adopt and promulgate a platform and to take such other actions with respect to such other matters as the Convention may deem advisable.
Delegate allocations, platform committee rules, all the good stuff. You can see it all here. Here's one change from 2008 I especially like (emphasis mine):
G. Unpledged votes shall be allocated to provide for the Democratic President, the Democratic Vice President, and all former Democratic Presidents, all former Democratic Vice Presidents, all former Democratic Leaders of the United States Senate, all former Democratic Speakers of the United States House of Representatives and Democratic Minority Leaders, as applicable, and all former Chairpersons of the Democratic National Committee.
The 2012 Summer Meeting ended yesterday in what potentially could be named the 2012 Democratic National Convention Host City
News 14 from Charlotte covered the convention angle of the story with DNC member and North Carolinian Pat Cotham.
Democratic National Committee member Pat Cotham said fellow DNC members were raving about Charlotte during the group’s summer meeting in St. Louis, one of the Queen City rivals for landing the party's 2012 national convention.
She said members from Michigan, California and Alaska told her Charlotte would make the best host for the Democrats and the president's re-election bid in 2012.
"They're excited that we're a young city. They've seen all of our new things we have uptown. It has more energy and it's something new,” said Cotham. “They said St. Louis is old, just as Cleveland is and Minneapolis and they want to go to someplace different."
DNC chairman Tim Kaine, on the cities bidding to host the 2012 Democratic National Convention:
"The four cities have all gotten over the bar in terms of demonstrating both capacity and desire... We'll spend some time analyzing and make a decision likely right at the end of the calendar year," Kaine said. "St. Louis has definately shown it's a very, very good side in this and we've been really pleased with the cooperation we've gotten." -KMOV.com
Here are some of the best tweets about the start of today's DNC summer meeting in St. Louis:
DNCPATNC: Looking forward to tweeting about the DNC meeting in St. Louis Thursday & Friday. Plan to promote Charlotte as the Host for 2012 convention
DNCPATNC: Gov. Kaine is talking about what a great job the Charlotte team did for 2012.
EdEspinoza: I'll see ya in St. Louis! Official hash tag for this weekend's DNC mtg is #dnc10
MissouriNet: Gov Nixon to pitch St. Louis as host city for 2012 DNC http://cot.ag/bf63Qb
DonnaBrazile: The DNC is meeting here in St Louis. Vice President Biden will address us tomorrow. Tune in. Also, I am headlining fundraiser for Carnahan.
WCooksey: In #CLT, you can get salted caramel brownies 24/7. How about the other cities? #Charlotte2012 #DNC10
MeckDeck: DNC 2012: Escort Gap http://charlotte.johnlocke.org/blog/?p=9236 #DNC #CLT #CLT2012 #DNC10
Woodhouseb: At #dnc10 Rules and Bylaws Committee passed the Call to the Convention by unanimous voice vote. Now discussing delegate selection rules.
BLDGbloc: LIBERALS + NASCAR, WHAT COULD GO WRONG?! #DNC10 #CLT2012
Woodhouseb: @ #dnc10 delegate selection rules recommended by Rules & Bylaws increases number of pledged delegates/their voting strength from 80 to 85 %
Woodhouseb: At the #dnc10 Mayor Slay is extolling the virtues of the proud City of St. Louis, & reminding DNCers that St. Louis voted for Obama in 2008.
DNCPATNC: DNC insider says the constant media attention in NC is helping us with the convention
DNCPATNC: MO is reminding Gov. Kaine that he went to Univ. Of MO. I told him I did too but Charlotte is best choice.
Charlotte supporters had a Twitter hastag party during the day. Search for #Charlotte2012 #DNC10 to see them all.
Meet me in St. Louis? For the leader of Charlotte’s competing bid for the Democratic National Convention, the answer today was going to be yes — at least this week.
Will Miller, acting executive director of Charlotte in 2012, was scheduled to speak to the Southern caucus of the Democratic National Committee on Thursday as part of the political party’s summer meeting. This morning, a spokesman for the Charlotte bid group said Miller had been forced to cancel his trip at the last minute for unspecified reasons.
Instead, David Young, the state Democratic chairman, and Pat Cotham, the newly elected Democratic National Committee member from North Carolina, will try to stir enthusiasm among the delegates in favor of Charlotte’s convention bid. Cotham replaced the late City Council member Susan Burgess as the N.C. committee member. Burgess died in June. She is credited with launching Charlotte’s effort to host the convention.
That Thursday’s meeting is in St. Louis — a finalist for the 2012 convention with Charlotte, Cleveland and Minneapolis — is coincidental. - Charlotte Business Journal
No word on whether anybody from Minneapolis or Cleveland will be there
Update: Charlotte Channel 9 reporter Blair Miller tweets that Will Miller did make it to the meeting.
Yahoo takes a look at Cleveland's bid to host the 2012 Democratic Convention:
The Colorado Convention Center, where the 2008 DNC was held, encompasses more than 580,000 square feet of contiguous space...
The current Cleveland Convention Center, on the other hand, has just a little over 375,000 square feet of exhibition space...
Cuyahoga County is working with MMPI of Chicago to build a new convention center adjacent to the proposed medical mart. That facility, however, is still in the planning stages and is not expected to be completed until 2013.
...In addition, venues such as Cleveland Browns Stadium and Progressive Field could be mentioned as possible sites for the presidential nominee's acceptance speech. ... Of the 22,000 hotel rooms in the greater Cleveland area, about 4,000 are located downtown. ... Chuck Berry and Nelly have both thrown their support behind St. Louis to host the 2012 DNC. Minneapolis quickly adopted a slogan: "Resourceful, Ready and Reliable." And several North Carolina media outlets and bloggers are already bragging that their city is the front-runner.
Cleveland seems to be lagging behind the other 2012 DNC contenders when it comes to local support. All 10 of Ohio's Democratic congressional representatives signed a letter asking the Democratic National Committee to pick Cleveland for the 2012 DNC. But there is no mention of Cleveland's quest to host the event on the city's website or the Positively Cleveland website.
Cleveland is definitely bringing up the rear in this race.
Last month we showed you how the four cities bidding for the 2012 Democratic Convention compared on LGBT issues. While the writer, Matt Comer at InterstateQ.com, subsequently made clear his support for Charlotte's bid, Charlotte's record on LGBT awareness has caused one local advocate, Mark Wisniewski, to write a letter to the Charlotte Observer:
I've been watching with interest the push for Charlotte to land the honor of hosting the Democratic National Convention in 2012 while reviewing the DNC platform and where Charlotte stands in relation to other candidate cities. When it comes to attractions, infrastructure and narrative, Charlotte seems to be consistently at the top of every list. Unfortunately when it comes to equality for the city's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) citizens, the results are not so good.
As Matt Comer of QNotes has already written in a detailed study, Charlotte ranks a distant last among the four candidate cities in the categories of equality, protections and recognition of LGBT citizens. I have written the DNC inviting them to address this as a strategic weakness in Charlotte's bid. ... Consequently I am writing this open letter to the city and its marketers in the hopes that they will address this matter. In order to assist, I offer the following suggestions:
1. The city should become a partner in the annual Pride event which last year attracted over 10,000 participants and was one of the largest in the state.
2. The city should start an active outreach campaign to the LGBT community and hold public information meetings soliciting their events and business.
3. The city should appoint someone as the LGBT community coordinator responsible for addressing concerns and making the city's multiple marketing agencies more accessible.
4. The city also should realize that there are more than just gay white men in the community: Outreach and communication and promotion of events must include people of color, lesbians and transgender people.
These are simple and mostly low-cost ideas that could greatly affect perceptions of the city and its treatment of LGBTs, both by people in the Charlotte region and and those outside such as the DNC.
Mark has also posted the original, even longer version of the letter than was printed in the Charlotte Observer, here.
St. Louis gets an extra chance this week to show off the city in hope of winning the 2012 Democratic National Convention.
Biden, Kaine and Sebelius are to speak at the DNC's general meeting on Friday. They are to be joined by Missouri's two top Democrats -- U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (far right) and Gov. Jay Nixon -- who both have been dealing with the political fallout on a congressional and state level. Each has adopted a difference approach. McCaskill appears to favor more confrontation, while Nixon has opted more accommodation.
What will be intriguing is if Nixon and McCaskill -- once rivals, now allies -- bring up their political approaches when each addresses the DNC officials.
Also set to speak Friday: St. Louis County Charlie Dooley, who has a keen political interest in the political climate -- and Democrats' approach to it -- since he will be on the November ballot as well.
Speaking Thursday to the DNC representatives, along with Kaine, will be St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and state Democratic Party chairman Craig Hosmer. - St. Louis Beacon
The DNC will vote on a Proposed Charter Amendment which "updates language to reflect modifications in the proposed 2012 Delegate Selection Rules pertaining to Unpledged Add-on Delegates". If you're a regular reader you'll know that an Unpledged Add-On Delegate is also known as a Superdelegate.
This is one of the keys to St. Louis' bid for the 2012 Democratic Convention:
To clearly demonstrate Labor’s determination to have the convention here, the effort has received the unanimous endorsement, and pledges of support, from every element of Organized Labor throughout the entire bi-state region.
St. Louis, considered as one of the most highly organized cities in America, has hosted five national party conventions, four for Democrats and one for Republicans. ... “The competition is very keen, but we have a lot to offer here and everyone is working together to showcase St. Louis as THE choice for the DNC,” said Brian Wahby, chairman of the St. Louis Democratic Central Committee. ... • Hugh McVey, president Missouri AFL-CIO: “Labor is 100 percent behind getting the convention here in 2012. • Michael T. Carrigan, president, Illinois AFL-CIO: “We would wholeheartedly welcome the Democrats to St. Louis for their 2012 Convention.
The Labor Tribune also notes that St. Louis, Cleveland and Minneapolis have union convention centers, while Charlotte does not.
U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) is trying to put some political weight behind Cleveland's bid to host the 2012 Democratic Convention:
Kucinich said he and all nine other Democratic congressional representatives from Ohio sent a letter to the chairman of the Democratic National Committee asking him to choose the city over three other finalists -- Charlotte, N.C., Minneapolis and St. Louis -- for the convention.
"I want the whole country to know what a great city this is, that it's a city that never quits," Kucinich said at a news conference.
Here's a report on the Kucinich news conference from Cleveland's Fox 8 News:
"For almost an entire generation, the Democratic Party has had a hands off attitude toward the South," ... "The storyline is making the South a battleground," the youthful Democratic mayor said, "coming to a state that has been significantly impacted by the economic downturn, proving its resilience every day."
And the Charlotte Business Observer has a profile of Will Miller, acting executive director of Charlotte's bid committee.
If Charlotte wants to host the 2012 Democratic National Convention, city leaders will have to pony up at least $50 million.
Raising the funds will be a challenge, but Mayor Anthony Foxx is confident the city can deliver.
“Charlotte has been able about to do it before,” Foxx said. “The arts facilities (including the Bechtler Art Museum, Gantt Center, Knight Theater and Mint Museum) were constructed with a private endowment of $83 million, and that campaign concluded in a recession and it was successful. We’ve got demonstrated ability to raise significant money.”
Landing the Democratic National Convention could mean a windfall for Charlotte hotels, restaurants and small businesses, as well as the city's image.
But skeptics say the projected $150 million-$200 million impact is overstated, that hosting the event could cost more than local leaders realize and that other cities with lofty estimates have come up short in the past.
One economist who co-wrote an extensive study on political conventions expects a net gain as low as $20 million. "Take whatever the promoters estimate and just move the decimal point one place," said Victor Matheson, a professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts.
