Ed mentioned this a couple of days ago, but in case you missed it, the Democrats will be holding their convention next summer in the City of Brotherly Love. (An increasingly ironic name, but that’s a question for another day.) Just as with the big GOP shindig, there are massive amounts of preparations taking place even now, with local businesses scurrying to see how they might best profit from the sudden influx of visitors. But the locals aren’t the only ones looking to capitalize (or at least score a few points) on the city’s selection as the convention site. The RNC immediately bought some Google advertisement space on the day of the announcement. When people did a search on “Democratic convention” here is one of the first ads they saw pop up.

I’m not sure how much promotional material they’ll sell to people doing that particular search, but I’m guessing that wasn’t the point anyway. And for those who want to cry dirty pool over this, the two parties have a long tradition of hijinks in their mutual dealings with each other. I’ve been to a few of these things and some of the stories are legendary. They include strippers being sent to a “bachelor party” at a hotel room which winds up being one of the delegates for the other party and small planes flying banners with opposition messages over the convention site. These things happen.

I do have to wonder about the selection of Philly, though. Ed brought up some of the pros and cons regarding the selection, and it’s true that they should be able to host a party like this without too much trouble. It’s a tourism heavy city which sees a lot of summer traffic already. (Trust me… you don’t want to spend a lot of time in Philadelphia in a snowstorm.) There are plenty of hotels, decent public transportation options and plenty of activities for those who get tired of the speeches. I worked in Philadelphia for about five years back in the eighties and it’s a great town with lots to do. But from the purely political side of the equation, it seems like there were better picks available.

Everyone likes to pretend that Pennsylvania is a purple state which might go Republican in the next presidential election every time pundits discuss it. Yet somehow the Keystone State denizens manage to pull the football away from us at the last moment every time. The DNC didn’t have to do any favors for Pennsylvania. They’re probably going to carry it anyway. And even if they were seriously worried about it, Philly wasn’t one of their concerns. The state is still essentially composed of two giant slugs of Democrat voters (Philadelphia being one of them) separated by a vast expanse of Pennsyltucky. If the Democrats really wanted to try to win over some hearts and minds by spreading around some consumer money they should have booked Scranton.

Philly is only a short commuter flight hop away from me. I may just have to stop by next summer and see what sort of games are going on.