Friday, November 11, 2005
New Orleans news
WE’VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com
DNC will have their spring 2006 meeting in New Orleans.
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Both parties are talking about New Orleans:
A Maryland congressman is urging his fellow Democrats to hold the party’s 2008 presidential nominating convention in New Orleans as a signal of national support for the city after its devastating losses from Hurricane Katrina.
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Democratic members of the Louisiana delegation immediately embraced the idea, although party officials were noncommittal and no mention was made that the convention is scheduled for the heart of the hurricane season and would end one day before the anniversary of the date that Hurricane Katrina made landfall.
More from Roll Call:
Cummings joined a chorus of Democrats who already have an opinion about which city should play host, with the sentimental favorite being New Orleans, which was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. The GOP made a similar statement in 2004 when it scheduled its convention for New York City, just days before the third anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“My first choice would definitely be New Orleans, assuming it would be prepared for a convention in those three years,” Cummings said. “We need to do everything in our power to show New Orleans and that region that they have not been forgotten and make sure that we pump every dime we can into their economy.”
“There would be tremendous symbolic value to doing it somewhere in the Gulf region,” added a senior Democratic House aide. “The only question is, will [those cities] be able to absorb a major influx of people?”
From Harry Shearer’s New Orleans journey:
WWL radio is reporting that a Democratic Congressman from Maryland, Elijah Cummings, is proposing holding the 2008 Dem convention in New Orleans. The radio hosts noted that, though this is an historically Democratic town, only the Reps have ever held a convention here, the “Read My Lips” conclave of 1988. The reason, one of them alleged, was that the Democratic organizers insisted on more rooms in unionized hotels than the city could provide.
And the Times-Picayune reports on the spring ’06 meeting:
Democratic events usually are held only in union hotels, Dean said, but with the only available venue for the event being the nonunion Sheraton Hotel the party was able to get labor officials to give the party “a full pass on this one.”
Posted by Matt at 10:45 PM 
I think that having the convention in New Orleans would be perfect. I think that it would be even better if they cut the convention to 3 days and made the convention very “bare bones” and used the savings to build homes. I think that it would be a great way to show that Democrats care of results instead of rhetoric. It would also show that we are united with New Orleans, which in all likelihood will be forgotten in 3 years.
Going to 3 days has been discussed before – not to save money – but to focus the press’s attention. The TV networks only covered 3 out of 4 nights in 2004 anyway, and it wouldn’t suprise me if they cut back to 2 nights of coverage in 2008.
But the real issue is, is New Orleans even interested in hosting for the convention? The deadline to express interest was last Friday, Jan 13, and there’s been no report that New Orleans has even expressed official interest to the DNC to host the convention.