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Denver’s up next week as a host for Republican leaders hunting for the 2016 National Convention location, a contest that pits our fair city against three others in a competition for thousands of visitors and—potentially—more than $400 million in economic impact.
The Republican National Committee’s site selection group visited Cleveland earlier this week and began its three-day tour of Kansas City on Wednesday. Denver gets its close-up on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and the group finishes the tour with a site-selection visit in Dallas. The RNC will announce the convention’s host city sometime this fall.
After doing a pretty bang-up job for Democrats in 2008—and seeing Colorado’s purple tinge these days—there’s no reason why the Mile High City shouldn’t be the front-runner for the GOP convention two years from now.
The arguments against the others seem to be just as clear:
Kansas City: Missouri has gone for the Republican presidential candidate in each of the past four elections. Plus, does the party really want to revisit its Gerald Ford nomination from the 1976 K.C. convention?
Dallas: The reddest-of-the-red states would seem an improper place for a party that’s bent on reaching out to independent voters. Dallas only makes sense if the GOP is rebranding itself and needs a safe place to do it.
Cleveland: It’s Cleveland.
—Image courtesy of Shutterstock