Yeah, looks like some members of the GOP are reading my posts.
But as I said, moving it to Jacksonville is only the beginning. The map is getting harder to cover. Unlike Clinton, who had no real path to Georgia, Arizona, and Texas, Biden actually does. Playing defense is going to be a LOT harder for the GOP this time.
Governor Kemp is still lobbying hard for Georgia. He’s pushing Savannah, which is smart - Atlanta would surround Trump’s circle jerk with ten thousand protesters, if he came here.
Savannah is good geographically, but JAX has hosted a Super Bowl. It has the hotel space. The logistics for Savannah’s more complicated. They’re complicated anyway given how late in the game this change comes.
Kinda sorta. Jacksonville didn’t have nearly enough hotel rooms for the Super Bowl; they brought in seven cruise ships in order to provide enough accomodations.
True, but it’s still probably more logical to have it in JAX than Savannah. Atlanta has, by far, the largest hotel capacity of any city in the region, but Atlanta’s too far from the northern Florida and Southern Georgia vote that Trump will need to carry the state.
Another idea that’s been floated (forgot where) is to have satellite gatherings, which would actually make sense. You could have the convention site in Jacksonville, and then have satellite simulcast events in places like metro Atlanta, Savannah, and beyond.
It’s going to be critical - not to mention challenging - for Trump to pick out pro-Trump voters in the suburbs in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Charlotte, and elsewhere. I don’t think Trump can win if his white suburban support collapses dramatically - well, not in a legitimate election in anyway. It’s not like he’s been particularly helpful to rural white voters either.
The very definition of “uphill battle,” it sounds like. (My sympathies!)
As for Trump’s nomination/coronation: he’s not going to okay anything less than an arena holding 50,000 screaming fans. If Trump has any expertise, it’s in how to make himself look as though people approve of him. Having 2,000 in a small venue, all spread out, with the other thousands on satellite links, is NOT going to cut it.
It’s not that Trump would mind lying; he’s be happy to claim that 2,000 people were actually 50,000. But he has a strong sense of how things look on TV, and he knows 50,000 looks a hell of a lot better than 2,000, regardless of what kind of CGI post-production might be employed.
I think you know how - look at what happened in Georgia and tell me that the GOP has any intentions at all of accepting that they’re losing in the marketplace of ideas. They’re going to Gaylord Perry* and Lance Armstrong their way through this entire race.
*Who here can honestly say that they ever thought they’d see Gaylord Perry’s name invoked in a politics thread. LOL
My guess - strictly a hunch - is that the national GOP heard in no uncertain terms from the NC GOP that if they fuck the state out of the convention that they shouldn’t expect them to lift a finger on the ground. This was probably done as a chance to salvage a few furniture items on the way out of the burning building.