When President Trump tweeted last week that the Republican National Convention would not be held in the long-agreed-upon site of Charlotte, North Carolina, there was no doubt he meant it.
Because Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper would not guarantee the Republican president an end to restrictions on “social distancing” by the scheduled convention date in August, Trump opted out of Charlotte — the first time since 1972 that the Republicans changed the venue of their national convention.
On Wednesday morning, White House sources told reporters on background that Jacksonville, Florida would be the new site for the convention that will renominate Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
“Clearly the convention became a political football,” veteran Tarheel State political analyst Marc Rotterman told Newsmax, “But this is President Trump's convention and it's his call on the way the convention operates.”
Rotterman added that “the big loser is the Charlotte metro area, as it was estimated the convention would bring in over $160 million in revenue.”
The last time such a switch in site occurred was in 1972, when Republicans abruptly ended their long-held intention of holding a national convention in San Diego and switched the site to Miami Beach.
Then, as now, the decision to switch cities came in May, three months before the convention.
One who recalls it well was the Republican mayor of San Diego at the time, Pete Wilson.
Wilson, who went on to become California’s U.S. senator and governor recalled to Newsmax how “much had gone before I became mayor. The City Council had voted to invite the Republican National Committee to hold its convention in San Diego and the [county] Board of Supervisors voted 3-to-2 to invite them. Our business community was very favorable to it.”
The convention would be held in August, which, Wilson recalled, “was right in the middle of the season in which the city was used to extending its hospitality [to vacationers] for a month.” Now the hotels would be blocking off rooms for a week — the length of the convention — instead of a month.
Wilson said questions were raised like whether the convention site hold all the delegates and other guests. “And whether the 12,000 Class- A rooms promised to be available from host committee would actually be available. All of those were bogus.”
Wilson also noted that “we were getting intelligence reports from the Republican National Committee that they were expecting activities that would disrupt the convention on the order of the activities at the Democratic convention in 1968. Our police department was keenly interested in all of these intelligence reports.”
At this point, Wilson pointed out, “for reasons that were unknown to most people and to me — there began to be rumors that the RNC would pick up and move the convention to San Diego to Miami Beach.”
When the decision to do just that came through, he said, “it was a considerable shock to me because we had taken some considerable pains to undertake the role of host. So when they actually pulled the plug, I was furious and did not hide my anger. I said some very pointed things in response to their reasons to move the convention.”
Wilson still feels the reasons for leaving San Diego were “bogus” and said “we were more than happy, and would have been honored to play host to a convention.”
As to a loss in revenue such as that now faced by Charlotte, Wilson said only “I would have to go back and look at the actual costs. I think some people lost money when we agreed to host the convention, because they canceled month-long bookings for week-long bookings.”
Regarding what Charlotte should do, the former San Diego mayor said of the current mayor of that city: “He should tell the truth and shame the devil" and find out what the real circumstances are for changing the locale.
(Michael Cozzi is a Ph.D candidate at Catholic University in Washington DC)
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