DNC: Dissin’ North Carolina
Recall the glory days back when Charlotte landed the DNC and champagne corks were popping and it was high-fives and big smiles all round. Back when Gov Bev boasted of North Carolina that, “We’re not just the New South, we are the New America.”
My how times have changed. Gov Bev is the ultimate lame duck; the local Democrat party has become a national punch line; and the DNC has shrunk from four days to three and is reportedly millions of dollars short its fundraising benchmarks.
Given all that as a backdrop, is it any real surprise that the prevailing national sentiment has now been reduced to wondering not if the Democrats’ big party will be a bust for Charlotte and North Carolina, but rather how big of a bust.
Indeed, in the wake of high-ranking Democrats actively encouraging their colleagues to skip the convention, the party has been left scrambling to fill seats at Bailout Stadium for The One’s big night. And apparently coming up painfully empty. This from The NY Post:
Top aides on President Obama’s re-election team are terrified that there will be scores of empty seats when he makes his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, party insiders said.
Obama, once the biggest draw in politics, won’t likely attract crowds as large as those at the 2008 convention because voters have gone sour on the poor economy, insiders said.
“It’s always a concern about making sure there aren’t empty seats, but this is different,” said one Democratic official familiar with the convention plans.
“This is a different time than four years ago. It’s a different convention. And the president is viewed differently.”
Expect the local host committee to come out swinging with denials of the latest report, sans any specifics to prove otherwise, just like when they insisted that fundraising was right on track. Take their word for it: nothing to see here – maybe quite literally come September.
And to be clear, a convention bust wouldn’t just be a huge black eye for the Democrat Party, but very specifically for Charlotte and Mayor Anthony Foxx. This was to be the Queen City’s shinning moment in the sun, when it would lay claim to its coveted World Class crown and stop worrying about Charlotte continually being tagged with the cringe-inducing modifier North Carolina.
In keeping with the national media’s growing lowered expectations for DNC 2012, though, maybe instead of the towering Roman columns that Obama used to bookend his stage in Denver, the convention in Charlotte should use those clay-colored and dimpled discs from the Lynx light-rail line.
At least they’d be good for something.
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