NYMag has “The Pros and Cons of Every City That’s a Finalist for Hosting the 2016 Republican Convention“:
On Thursday, the RNC named its top eight finalists to host the Republican National Convention in 2016. Dozens of cities submitted bids, but now the real battle begins. The contenders are: cities in Ohio (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus); desert cities often avoided in summer (Las Vegas, Phoenix); and red-state cities that are almost guaranteed to be safe from hurricanes (Kansas City and Dallas).
Right now, the
bachelor partyconvention seems to be Las Vegas’s to lose. “Other than Vegas, you can’t find a state that has vocal supporters from other states,” said a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party to the Washington Post. “There’s a pretty broad consensus that Las Vegas is the most logical choice.”…
For entirely personal reasons, my favorite:
Kansas City
Pro: The last time the GOP convention was held in Kansas City, Reagan lost the nomination to Ford, but his famous concession speech invoked the image of America as that “shining city on a hill.” That line is fair game, and any chance to bring up Reagan, we’ll take.Con: Someone, we don’t know who yet, but someone, is going to thank the people of Kansas.
The 1976 World Science Fiction Convention (guest of honor: Robert Heinlein) coincidentally followed the 1976 RNC Convention in Kansas City, just at the social tipping point where sf was going “mainstream” and the GOP was going full-metal wingnut. SF fans, used to be treated with a mixture of contempt and fear by hotel reps, were stunned by a wave of friendliness, even open-mindedness, from the ‘mundanes’ working the con sites. Many (quite possibly apocryphal) stories were told about hotel concierges sharing tales of bad behavior by RNC delegates… the most popular, IIRC, finishing with the punch line “As long as your people don’t throw any hookers through a second-floor plate glass window… ”
Mnemosyne
I heard this hotel guest nightmare story on NPR a couple of weeks ago, told by the actual nightmare guest. (There is audio, but you can also read the transcript.)
I swear I’ve heard the story before, because I recognized the punchline, “Sir, we wanted to let you know that you are no longer welcome at the Ritz Carlton Montreal.”
Villago Delenda Est
I read somewhere once that the working girls would rather have Dems than Repukes in their city for a convention, because the Rethugs were too much into kink and fetishism.
Amir Khalid
No, no, no. One says, “When You’re Absotively, Posilutely ready to …”
COB
I am so hoping Kansas City will get it. It will be a most splendid spectacle of sordidness and lunacy that the city has ever seen. And I’ll have front row seats.
Gatchaman
@Mnemosyne:
I once get totally wasted at that very hotel. Montreal was a frequent drinking destination for us underage Bostonians.
Mnemosyne
@Gatchaman:
A night of drinking seems to be how the narrator ended up riding the elevators completely naked. But I won’t spoil it too much.
Gatchaman
I’d opt for Vegas for the buffets alone. I’m not a Conservative Christian so don’t get excited about the legalized prostitution.
BionicSpaceJelly
Normally a lurker, but I just have to chime in. If it’s in KC I’ll probably have a super front seat row since I work in Hotel AV. Most Repub events occur at the hotel I work at and they’re always filled to the brims with crazy.
Amir Khalid
It’s kind of like the Olympics’ host-city selection process, isn’t it?
longtimelurker
and Kansas city SF fandom is once again bidding to hold the WorldCon in KC…In 2016.
Those Repubs in KC back in ’76 were truly unpleasant people, there were still a few hanging on when the fans started arriving. As a volunteer for Big MAC, I heard directly from several hotel workers that we were a delight after putting up with the abuse and mess the Repubs had made the week before.
I sure hope that Vegas wins for the Republican con in ’16, WorldCons are hard enough to pull off without having to deal with that lot again.
(waves, ducks back into lurking depths)
SatanicPanic
@Amir Khalid: Probably with added corruption and much less prestige for the host.
gogol's wife
I was working in downtown KC the summer of the Republican convention. Although it wasn’t mainly downtown, I enjoyed seeing all the handsome Secret Service guys with cords coming out of their ears. Not a common sight back then. But having all those Republicans crawling around wasn’t as much fun.
Wag
Thank FSM that Denver isn’t on the list. Although I’m surprised. I think it was the good vibes from the Denver convention on 2008 that helped elect Obama. The GOP could have tried (and no doubt failed) to capture that magic.
jl
The unofficial motto of Vegas is ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’, which has an auspicious ring to it for a GOP presidential nominating convention. So, I hope for Vegas.
Probably be in Ohio though, for swing state reasons.
No love for a California city? Unless its San Diego, probably a bad idea. Too many locals would express disrespect, or worse, be slightly confused about what ‘Republican Party’ meant (“Huh, wha, myannn…. those old dudes still, like, alive an’ shit…?”)
jl
@SatanicPanic: And photogenic hot young athletes are scarce.
NotMax
Well, everything’s up to date in Kansas City.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
Cincinnati has ‘sin’ in it. Twice.
Columbus was a foreigner.
Phoenix in summertime? ’nuff said.
Cleveland makes Akron look exciting, plus the Cleveland Indians play at Progressive Field.
Dallas puts the spotlight on Texas, and hence on Ted Cruz (who by then will have mastered the art of burning his bridges before he comes to them).
Amir Khalid
@SatanicPanic:
I’d agree about the less prestige for the host city, but I don’t know about the added corruption. The IOC bigwigs know a thing or two about being corrupt on a grand scale.
boatboy_srq
@Villago Delenda Est: @COB: The combination of your perspectives alone makes me want to root for Kansas City: it’d be instructive for the folks there to see what amoral wankers the GOTea conventioneers are. Vegas is good about hiding
bodiesvices: Kansas City, not so much. And the “working girls” aren’t the only ones to be kept busy: keep your eye out for some wide-stance baggage-carrying as well.There was a LOT of humor in CA when the pre-Teahad GOP had their convention in San Diego: “illegal immigration” was a hot topic – and we all wondered how the delegates thought they were getting fed, housed, transported and cleaned up after if “illegals” were such a problem. Also up for grabs was how the drivers/maids/cooks/waiters/etc were handling their guests, and what they were doing without the conventioneers’ knowing. And IIRC the recent GOTea event in Tampa proved profitable for Mons Venus and the other local adult establishments.
MikeJ
@jl:
Republicans take it as a matter of faith that people are fleeing California because they’re sick of big government, even though the population is actually exploding. It’s hard to have a convention in a place where you claim it’s impossible to do anything.
Omnes Omnibus
The “city on a hill” stuff is not original to fucking Reagan. It comes from Matthew 5:14. It comes into US mythology through a 1630 sermon by John Winthrop and it was used in the modern era by JFK years before Reagan used it. Further, Reagan misinterprets the fucking line anyway.
jl
Too late to add Nome, Alaska to the list? I been to Nome, it has some attractions, if you are into (barely) subarctic nature stuff. And gold mining.
The ‘stuck’ for a long time theme would go nicely with the GOP.
Humans May Have Been Stuck on Bering Strait for 10,000 Years
http://news.yahoo.com/humans-may-stuck-bering-strait-10-000-years-190505299.html
Edit: or Kotzebue, though Nome has more the makings of a convention city, IMHO.
SatanicPanic
@jl: Paul Ryan’s biceps read that comment and are bummed out man.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Reagan. Jesus. How can you tell them apart?
Lyrebird
Kansas City is fun and has quite reasonable public transit! YAY KC MO!
And largely free of hurricanes, but not from tornadoes.
Calouste
@Wag:
Denver actually is on the list. It’s the eight city that is not mentioned in the summary.
scav
@jl: Don’t need to be young, just bare- (or bear-) chested — cf. Putin and the swooning idolators thereunto.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: One of ’em looks Jewish. Not as Jewish as Judas, but still…
Amir Khalid
@Lyrebird:
I’ve always wondered: Is Kansas City one city straddling a state border, or is it two cities each of which grew on its side of the border?
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Two separate cities — the Missouri side is the only real city.
NotMax
@Baud
One is renowned for impassioned delivery of lines with heartfelt conviction and practicing what he preached.
The other dyed his hair.
Mnemosyne
@Lyrebird:
I suspect the odds are pretty high that half the delegates would show up in Kansas City, KS, instead.
Baud
@NotMax:
That’s helpful. But can you remind me, which one of them sold arms to the Iranians for money to feed the multitudes? I always forget.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: That had to be Jesus because Reagan didn’t do shit to feed the multitudes.
NotMax
@Baud
Reagan can do no wrong. Ipso facto, must have been Jesus.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: @NotMax: Interesting. We got to the same place by very different routes.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Such is religion.
Calouste
@Baud:
I always thought it was like Budapest, two cities on different sides of a river that merged and both contributed part of the city name.
Baud
@Calouste:
I don’t think any city in the U.S. officially crosses state lines, since all cities derive their authority from the state.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Also, if Reagan = Jesus, does Thatcher = John the Baptist? Or is she Mary and Goldwater, John the Baptist?
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Mary Magdalene maybe?
mai naem
Vegas is fine by me for comedy reasons but I would kind of enjoy Phoenix. I figure Nevada is bluer than AZ and I would rather Nevada kind of be pushed into becoming bluer and lose Arizona for another cycle. I also happen to have friends in the hospitality industry in Phoenix and I know this would be good for business. Any idea where the Dems are going? I would like to see the Dems on offense and come to Phoenix, Vegas or even Austin. I know its highly unlikely, but if Wendy Davis pulls it off, they should definitely have it in Texas .Can Austin even handle it as far as infrastructure or would it have to be in Dallas or Houston?
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: From the book of Elvis: When England was the whore of the world, Margaret was its madam.
waspuppet
It’ll be Vegas because no one else will have them by then; because Republicans have absolutely no eye for symbolism; and because they know that (to repurpose a point from Bill Maher) no Democrat will get up at the Dem convention and say “Well, the Republicans can spend as much time as they want in (rolls eyes) VEGAS sitting around TALKING about what they call family values, but here in (wherever the Dem convention is) we live REAL family values every day.”
Depressingly, on that last point the Republicans are right.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
There really is nothing to say that hasn’t already been said before, is there?
Amir Khalid
@Calouste:
So the Kansas side was “Kansas”, and the Missouri side was the “City”?
NotMax
@Calouste
Such imagination, those Hungarians.
Hey, we’re going to unite Pest, on this side of the river, with Buda, over there. What shall we name this marvelous new entity?
Thankful that when Brooklyn ceased being a separate city (not all that long after the time Budapest was created) that the name of the combination wasn’t changed to Brookyork.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: Nope, you got it backwards.
gbear
When the republican convention was in St. Paul (and Palin was unleashed on the world), the city was a nightmare of helecopters and illegal roundups. It was horrid. I emailed my favorite MPR morning show and asked them to play ‘Here Come The Choppers’ by Loudon Wainwright III, which they did, after giving it a joking intro about what a subversive I was. Unfortunately I missed it because they played it after a Tom Waits song. I fucking hate Tom Waits.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Close. The Kansas side was Kan and the Missouri side was Sas City.
SatanicPanic
@Baud: Wrong, it was a merge of Kans and… nevermind.
PaulW
The GOP last held their convention in Tampa, which is generally considered one of the top strip club cities (by volume if not quality) in the Eastern seaboard.
Now they’re looking at Las Vegas as their prime location: a city born by gangsters, based on gambling, surrounded by legalized prostitution. Yeah, I’m loving the optics here.
Baud
@PaulW:
Maybe they’ll get an old Hollywood actor to speak to an empty craps table.
Bubblegum Tate
Oh Jebus, please let it be Vegas. That pitiful shithole deserves nothing more than to be visited by a plague of
locustsRepublicansNotMax
@Baud
Yup.
But among those which come darned close are Texarkana (TX/AR), Bristol (TN/VA – the state line runs down the center of a street in what is the downtown of each), and Lake Tahoe (CA/NV – the border bisects a c*sino).
Canada has some examples which overlap provinces: Flin Flon and also Lloydminster.
(Plus it is just fun to say Flin Flon.)
piratedan
@BionicSpaceJelly: if so, have your phone charged to record……
Lyrebird
@Amir Khalid: Hi Amir, and (S_l_m al_k_m to ya!)
KC is in Missouri.
It did not begin by straddling the border, but now there are suburbs of KC, MO on the Kansas side. More urban and more Dem == MO side, mostly.
At least according to some local lore, the town began as a meeting point of foot trails on trade routes that existed before European arrivals. For sure it was an important transit hub when rail was king.
mai naem
@NotMax: Actually Phoenix heat is a dry heat and ends up being a whole lot more comfortable than the South, and,heck, recent summers in the Midwest have been pretty hot and humid too. Also, Vegas isn’t a whole lot cooler than Phoenix.
Anyhow, the WP story has some pretty funny comments -“Make sure there’s a parking space for the clown car” hee hee.
Baud
@BionicSpaceJelly:
Oh, wow. You could be the next 47% guy.
Hungry Joe
Vegas it has to be. HAS to be.
About 20 years ago I was in a cab on the Strip (I was covering the Booksellers Convention, held there for the first and last time) and we were caught in an endless, nightmarish traffic jam. Cabbie shook his head and said traffic was always bad. “This never would have happened,” he said, “if the Boys were still in charge around here.”
BillinGlendaleCA
@Gatchaman: While prostitution may be legal in the state of Nevada; it is NOT legal in Clark County where Las Vegas is located. That said, there are many ‘working women’ in Vegas, or so I’ve heard.
NotMax
@mai naem
Actually was going to to with:
Phoneix? Sounds to much like p*nis unless one slowly and carefully enunciates.
But decide to revise.
As the GOP lo-o-o-ves to use the local stadium as a backdrop for events, would be a hoot to have those held at Progressive Field in Cleveland. :)
*Dang you, FYWP
geg6
Pittsburgh is in the running for the DNC. I can’t tell you how fervently I want that to happen and to have Cole and Imani back together, wreaking havoc in the Burgh.
The Dangerman
@PaulW:
The optics so obviously SUCK that I can’t believe the Republicans would choose Vegas. I mean, there’s a chance that Rick Santorum will be a primetime speaker (and a nonzero chance he gets the Nom) and they are going to have his night in VEGAS? I don’t think so.
MikeJ
@Hungry Joe:
I still say that the next big theme hotel in Vegas should be a 1960s Vegas themed hotel. A Disneyfied experience of staying in a mob owned hotel could go over big.
PaulW
@BillinGlendaleCA:
The brothels are still a limo ride away.
Bokonon
@Calouste: Handing out Coors Light as part of the Denver pitch? Really? That’s pathetic. In a state that has lots and lots of good beer – and for a CITY that has more types of beer brewed in the city limits than any other in the country – that’s doubly pathetic for Denver.
The only reason that they were handing out Coors is because of the Coors family’s right-wing credentials, huge political donations, and their strong relationship with the GOP. Pete Coors was probably helping pitch the whole thing.
Hungry Joe
@MikeJ: “Mob”? Where did I say “mob”? I didn’t say “mob.” I don’t even know what a “mob” is. Nope. I’m unfamiliar with the word. Do I know you?
NotMax
@MikeJ
That place’s signature stage show could be billed on the marquee as “The Valntine’s Day Assacre.”
(Yeah, it happened in Chicago, but Vegas appropriating and revising history is nearly de rigeur.)
Lenny Bruce on Las Vegas (still funny after all these years).
PaulW
@The Dangerman:
But this is exactly how tone-deaf and hypocritical the GOP has become. To them, Vegas represents some kind of wild west, libertarian-esque world of massive businesses rising up out of the desert wastelands, filled with low-wage workers they can exploit to their hearts’ content, surrounded by sun-baked southwestern conservatism just hours away from Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Idaho and Orange County, CA. The gambling and whoring are just incidentals (that they can enjoy off-camera).
PaulW
@MikeJ:
I’ll order the Moe Greene Special, whatever that is…
scav
OT Eek eek eek, or squeak squeak squeak! The Mouse is joining the oppressive forces even further! Disney World pulls Boy Scouts funding over LGBT ban.
They really will soon be down to knitting alone, at home, with their chik-fil-whatevers.
And this is over the leaders ban.
ETA @MikeJ: might want to rethink the Disneyfied aspect.
The Dangerman
@PaulW:
Have they never heard the Vegas slogan “what happens in Vegas, etc.”? Everyone else in the country has.
Assholes.
ETA: Seriously, them choosing Vegas is tantamount to them saying “we’re gonna lose, might as well go down with the maximum of hookers and blow”
Bobby Thomson
@PaulW: Not the Chicken al Fredo? It’s served by two cocktail waitresses at a time.
PaulW
@Bobby Thomson:
I heard it was too weak.
cckids
@Villago Delenda Est:
As a resident of Vegas, I can’t speak to that exact profession, but, in general, folks who work on the Strip say that R’s are cheaper tippers, harder to deal with & generally bigger assholes to have around.
With the exception of the Rodeo Finals crowd, apparently they gamble like crazy & are pretty decent.
cckids
@Gatchaman: Not legal in Vegas or Clark County. Gotta drive 65 + miles west for that, for it to be legal, that is.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud:
Jesus fed the masses. Reagan said “starve them.”
Bobby Thomson
Applications for the 2016 Democratic convention are due this Saturday. Wasserman-Schultz sent out invitations to about 36 cities.
On the one hand, it would be nice to give a boost to the economy of a once-great Midwestern city like Detroit or St. Louis, but the optics aren’t necessarily great. I would avoid Gulf states because hurricanes and corruption. Milwaukee would be a nice way of taking it straight to Walker and Ryan. Salt Lake City is surprisingly Democratic but wasn’t invited and I would assume all the facilities would be bugged or worse. Austin isn’t going to bid. Baltimore and Pittsburgh would be solid but safe choices.
Bobby Thomson
@PaulW: So you’re passing it over?
Villago Delenda Est
@PaulW:
You get James Darren to do Vic Fontaine, and you’re set!
“Hey pally!”
jl
@PaulW: I remember reading something by David Brooks where he said the Nevada truck driver was an true all-American archetype of the real stolid self-sufficient America. I thought that was a weird idea.
cckids
@mai naem:
Dry heat or not, Vegas or Phoenix in August are both just hellish. It isn’t unusual for temps to still be at 99 to 100 degrees at midnight, drop briefly to 95 or so, then back up by 9 am. Fun!!
Please come here, Repubs. Our city was ground zero in the foreclosure hell your big money people caused, you should come here & face the music. Also, leave some $$ here, we’re still on the edge.
Villago Delenda Est
@jl:
Well, Brooks was full of it then, as he always was, unless the Nevada truck driver built his rig with his own hands and personally refines oil pumped out of the ground in his back yard into diesel.
David Koch
Only someone as dumb as Reince Priebus would have the convention n Vegas. The average temperature in July is 104 degrees.
TCG
Dallas native here. I just want to say that we are a blue city. Dallas county went for Obama in 2008 & 2012. We don’t want the GOPer convention here.
danielx
@Bubblegum Tate:
What? Like Vegas isn’t where Republicans go to get their ya-yas out all the time? It’s perfect for them. In St. Paul some wingnut delegate – forget his name, but he was a genuinely notorious asshole – got ripped off by some hooker for a Rolex and some other stuff and it was like page one news. In Vegas, getting ripped off by a hooker is not exactly news, and getting your freak on is more or less why people are there.
@NotMax:
Today’s intertubes win.
danielx
@The Dangerman:
Well, it’s not like Republicans have paid much mind to optics since, oh, January of 2009.
tybee
@Omnes Omnibus:
dayyum.
Origuy
@NotMax:
The bisected c*sino is on the north side of the lake, in Crystal Bay. Its California counterpart is King’s Beach. The south side is split between South Lake Tahoe in California and Stateline in Nevada.
There’s also Colorado City, AZ and Hilsdale, Utah. They’re known for being run by Mormon polygamists.
tybee
@Amir Khalid:
as has been said, there is a Kansas City, Missouri and a Kansas City, Kansas and they are adjacent.
the main airport for both cities is in Missouri.
which can lead to some interesting situations…
many moons ago, a company i worked for had an office in KC, KS.
a group of us was headed out to that office to revamp their computer equipment.
we had put one of the junior members of the group in charge of shipping all the equipment to the office in Kansas a few days before we were flying out to install said equipment. it was a fairly large and expensive bunch of stuff in many boxes.
so, we’re boarding the flight out of atlanta and the display at the boarding gate says “flight 666 to to Kansas City, Missouri” and as we passed by the display the junior member suddenly blanches and blurts out “oh shit, i sent all that stuff to Kansas City, Kansas”.
the rest of us remained solemn faced and said, pretty much in unison, “you did what?”
we let him suffer for a few before letting him know.
jl
@Villago Delenda Est:
” Well, Brooks was full of it then, as he always was, unless the Nevada truck driver built his rig with his own hands and personally refines oil pumped out of the ground in his back yard into diesel. ”
My theory is that Brooks read about the NV warehouse boom (due to race to the bottom on state inventory taxes) and needed an archetype to fit. Warehouseworker did not quite ring, but truck driver has that lonesome road magic to it, so he went with that. And he hoped someone would ask about it, but no one did, because to do so might be too awkward.
That;s my theory, anyway, on how that archetype came to be.
Gretchen
small note: Kansas City is in Missouri.