Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Dems still have the better date
WE’VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com
Over at Daily Kos, various commenters are asking that the Democrats change their 2008 convention date to go after the GOP. Again, here’s why the Democrats have the better date, and why they shouldn’t change:
- The GOP is starting their convention on Labor Day – bad for viewership
- The GOP is going right after the Democrats, causing all the media to have to do back-to-back conventions, and losing their Labor Day weekend. Can you say “cranky media”
- Ending the convention on the Thursday before Labor Day leads into a great weekend of campaigning
- Doing the convention the following week runs into the start of the new TV season, giving the networks more reasons to reduce their coverage
- Doing the convention the following week causes the acceptance speech to occur on 9/11/08, which can only distract from the focus of the day.
- Doing the convention the following week could cause problems for all the teachers who are delegates, and teachers make up a large proportion of delegates at the Democratic Convention.
- There are some state-specific laws having to do with ballot access that pretty much prevent us from holding it much later than the GOP in 2008. (Thanks to Dan Slater’s comment at Daily Kos)
The Democrats picked the better week.
Posted by Matt at 3:11 PM 
I know you explained a long time ago that the party currently in power gets the first choice of dates and normally opts to go after the other party.
But in this case- if the R’s have selected their date, can Democrats then choose to hold theirs after that date?
Not that it would be a better date at all, I read the list of pros/cons on here. But once they have their date selected, if the DNC did choose to go after them, they are able to, correct?
Thanks for the clarification! Libby
The DNC could change their date if they wanted to, as long as the cities in question did not have any conflicts with the new dates.