Well, the American Library Association did go to NOLA this past year. Before you scoff, realize that ALA is a huge conference.
I can back that up. I had to fly into Jackson one time and the only way in was on one of those little prop planes leaving DFW. I’m not sure I saw the entire airport, but if I did it only had something like 10 gates.
I worked in a hotel, in just about every department, and you can trust me, they won’t. Booking a block of 50 rooms can actually get you a pretty good rate, especially if it’s in the slow season. Booking 500 rooms is a major undertaking. Now you’ve sucked up all the hotel’s surplus. That means if an airline strands 20 people, and refuses to pay for hotel for the night (which happened frequently), there will be no rooms available, and the block rate is going to be lower than the rack, the corporate, or the AAA rate that the distressed passengers would pay. That’s not to mention dudes who get lucky in the lounge, people who came home from work at 7PM to find that their power is out, someone who just decided he’s going to get drunk as a lord, married people from work who just hooked up at happy hour down the street…
Well, anyway I think you get the picture. The idea of not charging the organizers for rooms they made go vacant is would be shot down immediately.
I didn’t say they wouldn’t be charged for them, only that they could work out a deal where they weren’t charged the full rate for them. Personally, I think having a “B” city is totally unnecessary, I just threw it out there for the folks who’d do the whole panicked bit about a hurricane hitting the city around the time of the convention, even though that possibility isn’t enough to stop plenty of groups from holding conventions there. Both Greece and L. A. are in earthquake zones, but that didn’t stop them from holding the Olympics in those areas and those events involve more money and more people than a political convention.
Colorado is a winner-take-all state. Y’all are thinking of either Maine or Nebraska, which each assign one vote to the winner of each congressional district, and two to the statewide winner.
I’m willing to bet that political convention organizers have absolutely nothing to do with organizing travel plans for 80 to 90 percent – if not more – of the people who attend them.
The location of a speech has nothing to do with how people vote. Face it. All but exceptional nomination speeches are forgotten in days, and even the great ones have NOTHING to do with where they are delivered.
However, disaster and disarray at a convention, like Chicago, might influence some voters. There are no ideal locations for political conventions, but there are bad locations. Contingency plans for moving conventions would cost a lot of money.
Besides which, moving the time of a convention would throw off the stride of a campaign and waste money. In this day and age when campaign spending is the main way to attract voters, no candidate in his right mind will run the risk of wasting millions in ad spending. Also, Federal dollars for presidential candidates aren’t available until they are officially designated the party’s nominee – delaying a convention would delay needed funds when advertising is on the uptick. Those who run political ads generally pre-buy time on networks in order to save money – they prebuy a huge amount of points the week of the election, about the same the week before, and calculate how many points are needed each week moving backwards on the calendar. Having a costly buy isn’t necessary during the week of a convention, because conventions are all about free media. If a convention were delayed a week, the heavy ad buy planned for post-convention would simply be millions of dollars wasted. Not to mention that if a convention were moved at the last minute, networks would be pissed. From the point of view of a politico, you simply can’t move or reschedule conventions at the drop of a hat. Travel plans are but one of many reasons why it is just a terrible idea.
I’m stepping on one of the third rails at the SDMB by posting without reading the entire thread, but I don’t have the time right now. That said, I’m a native New Orleanian and there’s just a whole lot of ignorance being thrown about with regards to the city’s ability to host a convention.
Bottom line: we can. The airport can handle the traffic. There are enough hotel rooms in the city and in the metro area. There are enough taxis and buses and other forms of public and private transportation to get conventioneers to and from the airport, their hotel, the Dome, and the convention center. We have a police force that’s only strong suit is crowd control and event management. We have the ability to host the media.
So, despite what you may have heard from the football analysts the past couple of weeks, New Orleans is strong enough to handle tourism and big conventions. There’s still lots of damage in the neighborhoods that took on deep water, and it will take years to address those areas, but the business district (including the Super Dome and Arena) and the French Quarter (the hotels) are open and functioning.
We just need some people to come visit. Locals are busy rebuilding their lives and are not able to spend time and money to support the portions of the economy that relied heavily on tourism before the hurricane.
So, please continue debating the choice of location for the ‘08 Democratic Convention, but you can take New Orleans’ lack of capacity off the table.
I am going to go out on a limb here and predict that the location of the party conventions will have almost no effect on the outcome of the general election.
got room on that limb for me?
Tuckerfan, continuing to argue that double booking a convention this size would be no big problem really makes you look delusional.
But worse, a little research shows that New Orleans specifically dropped out of the race to host the convention last summer. They didn’t want to waste the upfront money required. So why the hell are you pitting the Democratic party for not pulling some crass political stunt that they are unable to perform anyway?
There was a referendum on splitting the electoral votes in 2004 (I think) that was defeated.
I’ve actually stayed in Jackson, when we were moving north from Louisiana. How many flights in and out each day? What about connections from major cities? People complain when they can only get to their destination with two connections.
No single hotel chain is going to be able to handle all the people going to a political convention. Not only that, convention goers want a range of prices, so one convention hotel won’t hack it. Not only that, due to company guidelines, lots of people don’t use the convention hotels, since their companies often get a better deal than the convention does. How are you going to handle them?
If a hotel reserves a block of rooms in city B, they won’t be able to hold meetings during that time, and they are going to be out significant amounts of money. If you’re covering an emergency, you clearly won’t be able to release the rooms until the last minute. I doubt a hotel would even do it - not only do they lose the room charges, they lose restaurant attendance, bar, etc.
I’d love to hear even one case where a big convention was able to pull this off. It might be possible, just barely, to move at the last minute if you find a convention center empty for the needed week, but that is very iffy, and even iffier for something as big as the Dems.
I assure you this was all done a long time ago, and only announced now. I suspect advance teams are looking at convention centers already for 2012. Even our fairly small conference books 3 - 4 years in advance, and we’re a bit more flexible on dates than the Dems are.
You’re right; I’d forgotten - voted against it, saw it defeated, and spaced it. That would have been by percentage, so I guess maybe that’s what they’re thinking of.
Tuckerman, you are so wrong you took the Wrongpike to Wrongville and got shanghaid to Wrongsylvania.
Get this: Denver is centered in Colorado. Colorado is a HUGE strategic state and Denver made a real play for the convention. Louisiana is not a strategic state. It went Red by 15 points last time and a helluva lot of likely Democratic voters are out of state now with the New Orleans diaspora.
Minnesota, for the other guys is an in-play state as well, having gone to Kerry by only 3 points in 2004.
So give it a rest. New Orleans sucks, we admit it. But electoral politics of a presidential election beats everything. Everything.
Wow! That’s it. You have figured out why Mississippi has recovered faster than Louisiana. Its because of its Republican governor. Not because the entire city of New Orleans was under 10 frickin’ feet of water for weeks after the hurricane. Nope, its because Mississippi has Haley Barbour in charge. :rolleyes:
Microsoft was planning on having TechEd in New Orleans this summer, but changed the venue to Orlando. Apparently, there are not adequate flights - as well as some other logistics problems - with having a big convention in town post-Katrina.
I was planning on having a victory party in New Orleans this Spring but then I allsudden remembered the fetid stink of 500 juicy cemeteries festering for twoooo years and then I kinda thought Branson was better.
May one ask victory for what? Were you elected caudillo of Mesa County?
And may one ask whether you’ve been to Branson or not? Because I’ll take fetid stink over hillbilly shenanigans any day of the week.