On Thursday, Cleveland, along with Dallas, Denver, and Kansas City were selected by the Republican National Committee's Site Selection Committee as possible sites for the 2016 Republican Convention. http://goo.gl/3nNDfG
According to Ryan Mahoney, Deputy Press Secretary for the Republican Party, all visits will take place between June 2nd and the 13th. An exact date for select cities is still being worked out. Prior to the select committee’s vote, both Cincinnati and Las Vegas notified the RNC they were no longer pursuing their bid to host the 2016 convention, apparently because their venues didn’t meet the committee’s required standards.
So, you might be asking yourself, what are the odds of Cleveland, Ohio, known to many only as the ``Mistake by the Lake’’ being selected as the site for the Republican National Convention for 2016?
Once you consider the Cleveland Cavaliers entered the NBA draft Tuesday night, slotted in the ninth position with a 1.7 percent chance of winning the first pick, only to stun the basketball world by walking off with the no. 1 pick (like a thief in the night) for the second year in a row; I’d say Northeast Ohio’s chances of landing the GOP convention are pretty darn good.
Cleveland last hosted the Republican National Convention in 1924, when the party nominated Calvin Coolidge. Among other milestones, it was the first convention to be broadcast on radio and the first convention to elect women to the national committee.
So why should the RNC award the convention to Cleveland?
First of all, the Buckeye State has a rich history in producing presidential timber. Ohio has been the native state of seven U.S. presidents; another, William Henry Harrison, the 9th president of the United States, while born in Charles City, a Virginia colony, settled in Ohio later in his life and always considered the Buckeye state his home.
Moreland Hills, a village in Cuyahoga County, is the birthplace of James A. Garfield (Republican), the 20th President of the United States. In addition, from 1869 through 1881, the White House was occupied by three Ohioans, all Republicans and all former Union Army generals: Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, and James A. Garfield.
History also shows that if the presumptive nominee manages to win the hearts of Ohioan’s, the better their chances of winning the presidency. Out of the last 17 presidential elections, Ohio voted for the winning Democratic candidates eight times, while voting for the winning Republican candidate nine times, dating back to 1948.
If I was a member of the GOP's high command, I’d latch on Cleveland like a magnet, considering how much it needs to flip Ohio in 2016 and more importantly win back some sorely needed voters in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland). Barack Obama, in his re-election bid, crushed Mitt Romney to smithereens, 69.3 percent to 29.6 percent; Obama’s strongest showing of all of Ohio’s 88 counties.
In seven other Cleveland precincts and one in East Cleveland, Romney didn't pick up a single vote. On Cleveland's West Side, Obama won 76 percent, while carrying 69 percent countywide. In the suburbs, Obama won 62 percent of the vote.
Obama carried at least 75 percent of the vote in nearly half of the precincts countywide (489 of 1,063).
Viewed from a sharper angle, Obama won Cuyahoga County by 236,478 votes in 2012. In Ohio's other 87 counties combined, Romney won by 129,219 votes; in other words, if you discount Cuyahoga County, Romney would have secured Ohio.
Now you’re asking is Cleveland really equipped to handle the convention goers, political operatives, and credentialed journalists who will flood northeast Ohio in the early summer of 2016? And what will they do in the way of entertainment, away from the convention hall?
On April 28th, ground was broken on the new Hilton Cleveland/Downtown Convention Center Hotel, an imposing structure, standing 32 stories tall.
The new hotel will feature a 28-story tower with 600 hotel rooms, a four-story podium of ballrooms, meeting space, retail and the hotel’s lobby. Amenities include approximately 55,000 square feet of meeting space, a restaurant, a lobby bar, a rooftop bar, an indoor pool and a fitness center. The hotel additionally comes equipped with underground connections to both the Cleveland Convention Center and the Global Center for Health Innovation. The cost of the project is $272 million.
Add to that, Cleveland has a relatively new casino (Horseshoe Casino), the world renowned Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, the Great Lakes Science Center, a competitive major league baseball team (Cleveland Indians) in the AL Central ; and is now home to Texas A & M sensation Johnny Manziel aka ``Johnny Football,’’ the latest addition to the Cleveland Browns. The Cleveland Orchestra, let’s not forget, remains one of the most sought-after performing ensembles in the world; while the Cleveland Museum of Art is hailed as one of the world’s most distinguished comprehensive art museums.
What better way, then, for the GOP to reconnect with urban America-than to pump more than $200 million into the local economy of Cleveland-a city still on the mend after sustaining a beating by the Great Recession. It would surely represent a missed opportunity for the party of Lincoln not to show the nation that Cleveland is known for more, much more, than being unjustly christened the ``Mistake by the Lake.’’
-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
May 23, 2014
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