Copyright © 1998 by the Boston Phoenix, Inc. All rights reserved.
This Just In: Conventional wisdom
Boston DNC 2000 explained in three easy pieces
By Dan Kennedy
No, the Democratic National Convention isn't likely to come to the FleetCenter two years hence. Those spiffy BOSTON DNC 2000: LET'S MAKE HISTORY AGAIN T-shirts donned by city workers at last weekend's state party convention aren't going to change that. Nor is the cheesy video the city put together going to impress anyone at DNC headquarters -- although the delegates in Worcester seemed to enjoy it.
Still, the notion that the Democrats might bestow such an honor on a state already in their "W" column isn't as screwy as it might first appear. Mayoral aide Howard Leibowitz, though conceding that Boston is a barely panting underdog, offers a rationale as simple as one, two, three:
- New York and Chicago, the media capitals of two big, crucial swing states, aren't in the running this time around.
- Two of the stronger bids are from cities the Democrats might prefer to avoid. Los Angeles is home to the Buddhist temple that was the scene of an Al Gore fundraising controversy. And Philadelphia, an urban success story under Mayor Ed Rendell, will be in the hands of a rookie mayor in 2000.
- Standard thinking holds that the Democrats won't party down in a reliably Democratic stronghold, preferring instead to wow voters in a state that could go either way. But Leibowitz argues that a Boston DNC would create such a huge buzz across New England that the Democrats wouldn't have to come back for the remainder of the campaign. By contrast, if the Democrats convened in blasé LA, they'd still have to return to giant California again and again that fall.
The Democratic National Committee will choose its 2000 convention site sometime this summer.