Question of the day
Friday, Feb 10, 2023 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Lynn Sweet reports that Chicago and Atlanta are now the two front-runners to host the 2024 Democrtic National Convention…
Blue state Illinois stands out as a “blue wall,” Pritzker said, a place where the policies of the Biden administration can be highlighted at a convention, with the Biden and Pritzker agendas closely aligned.
Illinois has an assault weapons ban; abortion rights locked in; workers rights laws; and, when it comes to infrastructure projects, Pritzker’s Rebuild Illinois capital plan has been boosted with massive federal funding from Biden’s signature infrastructure bill. […]
“Is [Georgia] really that purple? [Pritzker asked.] Well, it’s got a Republican governor, a Republican legislature, it’s got a majority of its congressional delegation is Republican. […]
Then there is the matter of hotels. A major Atlanta vulnerability is its lack of union hotels. Atlanta has only two union hotels, compared with 45 in the Chicago area.
* The Question: Chicago or Atlanta? Explain.
- JS Mill - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 9:57 am:
Chicago, because Chicago is still awesome and I have never enjoyed Atlanta in the summer.
- Joe Bidenopolous - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 9:58 am:
Atlanta. Because I live in Chicago and don’t want the headache of a convention here.
- Cheswick - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:01 am:
Chicago because it’s the best.
- New Day - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:04 am:
Chicago because we’re a blue, pro-labor state. And because we have a very successful blue governor. And because it’s way more pleasant in Chicago in the summer than Atlanta.
- RNUG - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:06 am:
Chicago is the more Democrat friendly state.
- Local Person - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:06 am:
Chicago. Because I love Chicago and politics.
- John Lopez - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:07 am:
Atlanta vs. Chicago
Georgia is a right-to-work state, Illinois is not and will not be with Amendment 1 passage.
Georgia was awarded an early Democratic primary, but the Republican governor & legislature still refuse to move the Georgia presidential primary to February 13.
Illinois’ primary is March 19.
Illinois’ two Democratic senators have a lot more seniority then Georgia’s 2 Democratic senators.
First time since 1996? Chicago is due for Democratic convention.
Fact Republicans meet just across border in Wisconsin 6 weeks earlier in Milwaukee is a bonus.
- Back to the Future - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:08 am:
Easy choice.
Chicago.
Atlanta is a nice place, but no way it compares favorably to the sights, theater, music or museums that Chicago has to offer to convention folks.
- Amalia - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:09 am:
Atlanta. Expand the base.
- City Zen - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:10 am:
Chicago, because nothing attracts an echo chamber like an echo chamber.
- G'Kar - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:13 am:
Looking at it strategically, it seems to me that Atlanta would be a better choice. Research, according to the attached article, seems to show that hosting a convention does give the party a bump in that state’s voting. In Illinois, a very blue state, that bump really isn’t important, but in Georgia, it might be very important.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2016/07/25/why-holding-a-presidential-nominating-convention-in-a-swing-state-matters/
- Save Ferris - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:16 am:
“Well, it’s got a Republican governor, a Republican legislature, it’s got a majority of its congressional delegation is Republican.”
Outside of the governor, the rest is compliments of Mr. Gerry Mandering.
Let Atlanta have it. JB should want it there as it would give him a new stage.
- Torco Sign - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:17 am:
Atlanta. Even a 0.5% bump in the Democratic vote in Georgia could make the difference in the state and the electoral college. Big picture, people.
- yinn - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:17 am:
Atlanta, for whatever “blue” morale boost it could provide.
- Grandson of Man - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:19 am:
Atlanta. Illinois is already in the fold. Georgia needs to be solidified as a place where Democrats consistently win. Georgia is also ground zero for democracy, where an ex-president literally tried to get the SoS to find him just enough votes to win.
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:21 am:
===Outside of the governor, the rest is compliments of Mr. Gerry Mandering.===
That’s not necessarily factually accurate, as the two Democratic senators, facing wholly unacceptable GOP nominees that lacked full GOP support… I was reprimanded for thinking Georgia was “purple” based on the US Senate delegation.
Georgia will continue to trend away from Red, that’s what makes Georgia, or North Carolina… Arizona, Pennsylvania… all are good choices to the trend being a friend…
But, it’s Atlanta v Chicago.
For me, the choice is labor. It begins and ends there.
You can talk logistics, history, “trends”, any and all measures, sure, they’re important… but it’s labor, and how Chicago and Illinois are allies of labor, and that can’t be dismissed.
- JoanP - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:24 am:
Atlanta. We’ll already have to contend with Lollapalooza and Nascar and god only knows what else. I could do without more mess.
But if it is Chicago, I’m going out of town.
- West Side the Best Side - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:33 am:
How about NASCAR to Atlanta in return for the convention in Chicago. Never could figure where the NASCAR base is up here and why the streets of Downtown should be used for it.
- Steve Z - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:35 am:
Atlanta, for the bump and a nice speech from Jimmy Carter
- the 647 - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:37 am:
Who has better weather in the summer? Chicago.
- Techie - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:37 am:
Chicago is generally a better fit for the Democratic Party.
But as others have said, having the convention in Atlanta may boost the party’s performance in that state, and that alone may make it worth hosting there.
- DuPage - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:38 am:
Chicago. It would cause the city to crack down on felons carrying and using guns, and violent crime in general.
- Arsenal - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 10:59 am:
Chicago because I am a shameless homer for this great state.
Electorally, Atlanta makes a ton of sense, but I think logistically you’d be giving Kemp and a bunch of unproven county governments too many ways to sabotage you.
- clec dcn - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 11:12 am:
Atlanta because we are a blue state with a blue governor. Why drum up things we don’t need in Illinois.
- Harriett - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 11:17 am:
Can’t we just do this over Zoom?
- levivotedforjudy - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 11:17 am:
Chicago because hopefully, the IL party albatross known as my current mayor will back back at her office at the Mayer Brown law firm. Those conventions are great for pols and the party to raise money and Chicago wallets will be open and plentiful. You could even have MAGA protests in Georgia. Cue up Frank Sinatra…that toddling town.
- The Truth - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 11:17 am:
Gotta go with Atlanta for political reasons.
- High Socks - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 11:19 am:
I mean, I’d love to have the convention again. But if the convention is supposed to be at a significant election rally point, the state that just turned purple and delivered the Senate to your party probably should be the spot.
- Lucky Pierre - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 11:22 am:
Definitely Chicago
The rest of the country can experience first hand the decline in the one of the world’s greatest cities since the last convention in 1996.
Mayor Daley made sure the city was gleaming and now there has been graffiti all over the new Byrne interchange for years. It look like the beginning of a a Welcome Back Kotter epsiode.
It will also bring a national focus to how the Democrat’s criminal justice reforms have lead to skyrocketing violent crime in areas frequented by tourists that used to be completely safe.
It will also highlight the 29% vacancy rate on the formally Magnificent Mile
- Demoralized - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 11:29 am:
You just can’t help yourself in bad mouthing Illinois can you. You do absolutely nothing but complain about everything as far as I can tell. Just leave already if you are so miserable. Because you’re constant whining is getting really old.
- Nuke The Whales - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 11:29 am:
Compromise: Atlanta, Illinois! Come on down to Logan County!
Actual answer: Atlanta, Georgia. For whatever reason, we aren’t giving 2020’s location, Milwaukee, a chance to have an in-person convention. Thus, Atlanta, Georgia. We need good press and zappy slogans in that media market more than ours.
- bored now - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 11:29 am:
atlanta. because i want to win. and georgia is a swing state. there’s really no purpose for holding the convention in a safe blue state…
- Loop Lady - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 11:38 am:
I think the Dems should gather in Chicago, and let the rhetoric be pro middle class and assail the GOP for putting up candidates that are not serving the needs of their constituents and wouldn’t know the truth if it bit them in their rear.
I can see the Santos headshot already with a big no over it.
- Demoralized - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 11:41 am:
Chicago. Let Illinois and Chicago have the revenue from the convention. Conventions don’t shape how people vote so holding it in Georgia isn’t going to give Democrats any sort of electoral advantage there.
- Lucky Pierre - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 11:45 am:
Should the other 8 candidates for Mayor and the 71% who disapprove of Lori Lightfoot’s tenure leave Chicago too?
Interesting choice to pick a city for a national convention where the residents clearly aren’t happy with it’s governance.
- H-W - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 12:00 pm:
Atlanta for two reasons. First, it may empower Georgians to register and turn out the vote. Second, because it will be an irritant to Marjorie Taylor Greene and her bestie, Mary Miller.
- Dotnonymous - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 12:21 pm:
Welcome Back Kotter is an ancient time stamp.
- Lucky Pierre - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 12:28 pm:
The Democrats actually owe Georgia a solid for the 100 million dollars lost by forcing the All Star game out of Atlanta.
The issue of supposedly racist Jim Crow 2.0 voting laws somehow lead to record turnout
https://www.axios.com/2021/04/04/mlb-star-game-cost-georgia-100-million
https://www.sos.ga.gov/news/record-breaking-turnout-georgias-runoff-election
- 47th Ward - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 12:48 pm:
I think the idea that conventions matter to voters in the host city/state is questionable. I don’t think local voters in Charlotte were energized when the Democrats held the 2012 convention there, and if Democrats in Georgia need a convention to remind them of everything at stake in Georgia, particularly for minority voters, then we’re in deep trouble.
Bring it back to Chicago. We know how to do this. Our weather is better and union families will benefit from the spending.
Cue that Toddlin’ Town video.
- bored now - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 12:53 pm:
Demoralized: there is absolutely no electoral benefit to holding the convention in a blue state. none. so arguing that a convention don’t shape how people vote is specious. the obama campaign in 2008 used the convention to both register more democrats in colorado (then a swing state) and kick off its fall canvassing effort, netting more than 200,000 more votes for obama than kerry. it wasn’t the convention that turned out these hundreds of thousand additional democratic voters but the organizing effort that was lit by the convention.
a chicago convention will have zero effect on the effort to win the white house. that may not matter to you, but it matters to democrats who want to win in 2024…
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 12:57 pm:
- Lucky Pierre -… diminishing the racist ways of Jim Crow, that checks out.
The difference between Georgia GOPers and the ILGOP is that the party in Georgia recognizes the dangers of Trump, Trumpkins, and tried as best they could to diminish them… then Herschel Walker.
Folks like - LP - just embrace Mary Miller.
- Gravitas - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 1:11 pm:
Pelosi counted on Illinois serving as a “Blue Wall” that would protect her Congressional majority. While Democrats carried all of the seats as planned in Illinois, I do not think Nancy envisioned dropping races in California and New York.
- Lucky Pierre - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 1:20 pm:
Care to cite my non existent support for Mary Miller?
Just the opposite I opposed the gerrymandering that forced a good Congressman like Rodney Davis who worked across the aisle to lose to her but continue with your baseless smears.
How can the Georgia laws be Jim Crowe 2.0 if they lead to record turnout and that allow for more early voting days than New York and Massachusetts?
Why no boycotts for the Big Apple or Beantown?
https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/apr/08/ask-politifact-are-new-yorks-voter-laws-more-restr/
https://www.politico.com/amp/news/magazine/2022/04/06/the-new-voting-restrictions-arent-as-restrictive-as-many-think-00023390
- Rich Miller - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 1:21 pm:
===gerrymandering that forced a good Congressman like Rodney Davis who worked across the aisle to lose to her===
lol
It wasn’t the gerrymandering, it was the Trump.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 1:25 pm:
…Also, Miller was drawn into the same district as Mike Bost. She chose to run in a neighboring district.
- Lucky Pierre - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 1:27 pm:
Nice revisionist history Rich.
Large portions of the Davis district was carved up for Budzinski
https://newschannel20.com/amp/news/local/race-for-illinois-13th-congressional-district-heats-up-nikki-budzinski-regan-deering
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 1:28 pm:
===It wasn’t the gerrymandering, it was the Trump.===
It was her Trump-y-ness and her support of Trump policies you touted. Daily.
You never called for Mary Miller to be censured, at any time during her antics…
I know, it stinks, but you still support folks that are racist thinkers, insurrection apologists, and conspiracy theorists.
It’s not a cult. It’s only a cult when you blindly just welcome Trumpian policies.
To bring it to Georgia… they may have Marjorie Taylor Green, but the statewides were adamant they weren’t Trumpkins. Nope.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 1:32 pm:
===carved up for Budzinski===
Yep. He coulda run against her.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 1:33 pm:
And now you’ve hijacked quite enough time on this post. Get back to the topic at hand. Or go back to doing whatever it is that you do in real life, like cheerleading for a Bears handout.
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 1:39 pm:
Rodney Davis lost… because Rodney Davis knew he couldn’t “out-Bost” Bost and Rodney Davis learned he couldn’t “out-Trump” Mary Miller… then came Trump’s endorsement of Miller.
Davis woulda been better served to be more like Kinzinger and leave with *some* dignity… instead Davis pandered to a crowd that never saw him as a cultist.
In short, - LP -… Davis lost, had few options, and was never going to be cult-y enough, no matter how he needlessly pandered and threw away his own dignity doing it.
The thought that Illinois is “bright blue” is because Kinzinger and Davis can’t win a GOP primary, and any Dem convention, even in Georgia, needs to remember that voters make choices to reject Trump far more than Republicans… and abortion was big in staving off even the modest of Republicans too.
- MisterJayEm - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 1:44 pm:
Atlanta because it could matter.
– MrJM
- JS Mill - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 1:59 pm:
=Chicago, because nothing attracts an echo chamber like an echo chamber.=
If that is the case the GOP should move their convention to Effingham.
The only choice is Chicago anytime is us Chicago vs. anyone because Chicago simply offers everything.
=the Democrat’s criminal justice reforms have lead to skyrocketing violent crime=
Now explain skyrocketing crime in Texas.
- Demoralized - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 2:15 pm:
==continue with your baseless smears.==
There’s generally nothing baseless when it comes to you.
- Bruce( no not him) - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 2:42 pm:
Can they schedule it the same time as the Nascar race?
Get all the mess out of the way at one time?
/S
- McGuppin - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 3:03 pm:
Atlanta. It’s going to be important for Dems to focus on President Biden and to make the case for his re-election. Doing that in a swing state makes sense….just does.
There will be time for others to make their case later.
- Stuck in Celliniland - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 3:16 pm:
==Davis lost, had few options==
Davis would have probably still lost, this time to Nikki B, had he decided to leave Taylorville behind for, say, Rochester and stay in the 13th.
- Ben Tre - Friday, Feb 10, 23 @ 4:11 pm:
Atlanta. Illinois will vote Democratic regardless. Georgia is a swing state.