{"id":232,"date":"2012-08-29T17:15:51","date_gmt":"2012-08-30T00:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.reed.edu\/politika\/?p=232"},"modified":"2014-03-18T10:10:22","modified_gmt":"2014-03-18T17:10:22","slug":"does-the-gop-need-a-better-convention-planner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/2012\/08\/29\/does-the-gop-need-a-better-convention-planner\/","title":{"rendered":"Does the GOP need a better convention planner?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.chadgibbs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/a-long-line.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.chadgibbs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/a-long-line.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"370\" \/><\/a>I attended both national conventions in 2008. \u00a0The Democratic convention was in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/2008_Democratic_National_Convention\">Denver<\/a> while the Republicans held their events in St. Paul (no, not Minneapolis&#8211;the GOP was at the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/2008_Republican_National_Convention\">XCel Center<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>The two events were quite distinctive in at least one respect: the Democrats walked and the Republicans drove (or were driven). \u00a0\u00a0Virtually every GOP delegation I knew stayed at hotels in or near Minneapolis, while the Democratic delegations stayed near downtown Denver or at locations along the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rtd-denver.com\/lightRail_subHome.shtml\">light rail line<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Every night, the Democrats flooded the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.denver.org\/what-to-do\/attractions\/detail?memid=2435\">16th Street Mall.<\/a> \u00a0That place was hopping! \u00a0I assume every night, the Republicans were scattered in their hotel bars and suites&#8211;I don&#8217;t know because I never saw them.<\/p>\n<p>Now I read that Republican delegations are once again frustrated by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oregonlive.com\/mapes\/index.ssf\/2012\/08\/mass_bus_failure_gives_republi.html\">transportation problems in Tampa.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Before anyone idly maps partisanship onto these choices, the GOP held its convention in Philadelphia in 2000 and NYC in 2004; the Democrat cities were Los Angeles and Boston. \u00a0 And Charlotte is not exactly a walkable city (though they do have a pretty nice light rail&#8211;with great barbecue available at Bill Spoon&#8217;s right next to the Tyvola Stop on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lynxcharlotte.com\/lynx-stations\/\">Blue Line<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>You have to wonder, though: who books a convention with 15,000 people into a city where everyone has to rely on private buses to get around?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I attended both national conventions in 2008. \u00a0The Democratic convention was in Denver while the Republicans held their events in St. Paul (no, not Minneapolis&#8211;the GOP was at the XCel Center). The two events were quite distinctive in at least &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/2012\/08\/29\/does-the-gop-need-a-better-convention-planner\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":241,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions\/241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}