Denver's bid for the 2008 Democratic National Convention is the subject of this article from the Rocky Mountain News. They write, "Some folks are sounding an alarm for Denver in the historic streets of north Boston. The Democrats are coming! The Democrats are coming! (Maybe.) If Denver does win a bidding contest to host the 2008 Democratic National Convention, the financial windfall might not be all it's cracked up to be, according to skeptics in the city that hosted the event in 2004. Some academics and business people in Boston urge caution, based on their experience with the event that gave Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry a home-state coming-out party. The Mile High City is bidding to host the 2008 convention based in part on projections that the 2004 event pumped $150 million to $163 million into the economy of greater Boston. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino calls the convention a rousing civic success and economic triumph. But doubters remain.
"Boston business operators give mixed reviews, and a local 'free-market' think tank called the mayor's economic impact figures exaggerated and says the real net gain was $14.8 million - about one-tenth of what boosters predicted. The skeptical report by The Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University has been the subject of fierce debate since it was released in 2004. The institute arrived at the lower figure after factoring in an estimated loss of $30 million in normal commuter and summer tourist spending, combined with the loss of more than $100 million from two events that were scrapped to make way for Democrats: the Olympic gymnastics trials and a harbor festival. Critics have accused the institute of having a right-leaning bias that caused it to intentionally underestimate the benefits of a Democratic gathering. The institute defends its methodology...
"One common complaint was that delegates had little reason to spend money in the neighborhood because they were treated to events at hotels, restaurants and official venues. Vendors who catered those events benefited, Conte said, but 'little of that spending by delegates takes place outside the confines of the convention hall.' Although The Beacon Hill Institute's post-convention report did cite a 'painful' effect on some local businesses, the final conclusion was that there was a net benefit for Boston. 'On balance, the effect of the convention turns out to be positive (if small) because the lost spending by commuters and tourists ... was less harmful than the benefits from the new spending brought by the convention,' the report concluded."
Here's a look at the 1908 Democratic National Convention, held in Denver, from the Rocky Mountain News. They write, "Proper ladies and gents wore hats to be stylish back when the Democratic nominating convention met in Denver in 1908. Denver's own prominent suffragist, Mary C.C. Bradford, struck a dignified, hatted pose in her portrait in the Rocky Mountain News that July. Bradford, whom the newspaper lauded as 'an eloquent platform talker,' made history as one of five women credentialed as delegates or alternate delegates to the first national political convention to accredit women...
"The success of the weeklong convention was joined by civic self-congratulation. The rough- edged frontier city embellished itself with such accolades as Paris on the Platte or the Queen City of the Mountains and Plains...
"The convention met Tuesday through Friday to nominate William Jennings Bryan as the Democratic standard-bearer. Bryan, who had failed in his bids for the presidency in 1896 and 1900, went on to lose to William Howard Taft. Denver, however, was considered a winner, charming its visitors with music by a cowboy band, war dances performed by an Apache Indian troupe and summertime snowball fights after trains delivered snow daily from the mountains. Residents wore lapel buttons imprinted 'I Live in Denver. Ask Me.' The first long-distance telephone line, strung between Denver and Kansas City, carried news bulletins from the convention, binding Colorado to cities back East. It was a heady time in the national spotlight for a city that only recently had paved its first streets. The News stretched its braces in civic pride: 'The people of Denver have given a geography lesson to tens of thousands personally, and through the printed page to tens of millions ... They realize now that there is no vacuum between the Missouri and the Pacific coast, that the whole region between belongs to the same pushing, striving, energetic race that dwells on either side.'"
Western Democrat: "Denver is a city on the rise and is already the capital of the interior west and the front-line on the blue trending occurring all around our region. Howard Dean, since you're making the call I have faith and I believe you understand the stakes: Either you take us back to where we've been before and the old stereotypes about Democrats or we forge a bright, western and mile-high path to our future as a party."
"2008 pres"
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