Group checks out city as convention site

Thursday, August 24, 2006 Having the convention would bring about $88 million from visitors. CLEVELAND (AP) — Local Democrats whose tastes run to kielbasa and anti-war rhetoric are trying to attract the 2008 convention of a well-heeled Republican Party backing the war in Iraq and hoping Ohio scandals don't ruin their White House chances in two years. The nine-member site-selection committee began a three-day look at the town on Lake Erie on Tuesday, its fourth and final city visit. Cleveland is competing against New York, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Tampa-St. Petersburg for the convention, when the party announces its nominee for president. About 20 volunteer boosters, most wearing red T-shirts, chanted "Cleveland Rocks R-N-C" as the committee members arrived at the airport on a flight from St. Petersburg. Ohio Republican Chairman Robert Bennett said the city and local GOP were "looking forward to showing them all of Cleveland's attributes." Mayor Frank Jackson greeted committee members at the airport and expressed confidence in the city's bid. "At the end of these 2 1/2 days, people will see that Cleveland is the right place," he said. Why this matters At stake for Cleveland: perhaps $88 million in spending by delegates, media and related convention types, plus a blockbuster opportunity to show off and shed a "mistake by the lake" image of a Rust Belt city in decline. The Democratic political leadership in Cleveland has lined up behind the effort. "Cleveland is a world-class city with a lot to offer," said Democratic U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who was mayor when the city went into default in 1978. He promotes his hometown as the capital of polka, bowling and kielbasa and helpfully lists on his Web site the 16 bowling alleys in his district in case wealthy delegates want a blue-collar night out. "I support Mayor Jackson in his effort to bring this convention to Cleveland and the economic boom it will bring," Kucinich said. Would Cleveland welcome the Republicans? Republican national Chairman Ken Mehlman got a sample two weeks ago when his Democrat-leaning audience at the City Club of Cleveland gave him some good-natured cheering when talk of the GOP convention came up. Former state Sen. Tim Greenwood, a GOP attorney from Toledo and convention delegate in 2000, said Republicans would be welcomed in Democratic Cleveland if his experience at the convention in Philadelphia is any indication. "When I was a delegate, it was Philadelphia, and that's pretty Democratic. The people were very hospitable there," he said. Motivation But cabbie Hayes Branham, 39, a Democrat who likes Republican ideas on work and self-sufficiency, wasn't so sure the GOP can count on a fuzzy, warm welcome here. "I don't think the working class will welcome them," he said Tuesday outside a downtown enclosed shopping mall decorated with welcoming banners. "But the self-employed definitely will welcome them." One upside for an Ohio GOP tainted by scandal might be motivating the party apparatus for another kingmaker role in the 2008 election, after the state clinched re-election for President Bush in 2004. "It can provide an opportunity to energize Ohio Republicans. It should be a good opportunity to do that," Greenwood said. Republican Sen. John McCain, who may be aiming to be nominated at the convention, agreed during a two-day political swing through Ohio this week. "Having visited Cleveland many times, I think it would be a wonderful place for the convention," he said. "It might have also some beneficial effect, quite frankly, from a pragmatic standpoint, on the election in Ohio — the people of Ohio being exposed to us in a more up-close and personal fashion." Democratic city GOP delegates exploring the city can't mistake Cleveland's political leanings. Delegates might pass the new federal courthouse named for Carl Stokes, the Democrat who became the first black elected mayor of a major U.S. city in 1967, or the renovated courthouse named for the liberal Democratic former Sen. Howard Metzenbaum. Across town, the city's public utilities building is also named for Stokes. Down the street, the library annex is named for Stokes' brother and fellow Democrat, Louis Stokes, who served three decades in Congress. The city's veterans hospital also bears the Louis Stokes name. GOP landmarks are mostly eye-level: the lakefront Voinovich Park named for the ex-mayor, ex-governor and current Sen. George Voinovich, and a park favored by the homeless and named for another GOP ex-mayor, Ralph Perk, who once accidentally set his hair on fire. The city's influential newspaper, The Plain Dealer, which endorsed Bush in 2000 and remained neutral in 2004, said in a column by Editor Doug Clifton that a convention could help save Cleveland from an outdated image as a "busted out rust-belt city whose river once caught fire."