The good news is that Philadelphia is on the shortlist for the 2028 Democratic National Convention. The bad news is that Philadelphia is on the shortlist for the 2028 Democratic National Convention.

By Denise Clay-Murray

Atlanta’s hot.

Now, I’m not saying that because I spent most of last week in the city that was at the center of the Civil Rights Movement and had to deal with heat and mugginess much of that time. I’m saying it because much of the city — heck, much of the South — is kinda mad at the Democratic National Committee right now.

You see, the DNC has announced the three cities that it’s considering as hosts for the 2028 Democratic National Convention. While Atlanta was on the initial list of cities vying for the convention, only Denver, Boston and, you guessed it, Philadelphia, made the final cut.

Boston last hosted the convention in 2004. Denver hosted in 2008 when Barack Obama made history as the first person of color to be a major party candidate for president. And Philadelphia last hosted in 2016, when Hillary Clinton made history as the first woman to lead a major party ticket.

Now, Chicago, which was also left out, is probably not all that mad. It just hosted the DNC two years ago and did a pretty good job. My guess is that more than a few folks in Chicago are looking at its Convention and Visitors Bureau and saying, “Really?! This soon?!”

But Atlanta, as I said, is hot. In a letter sent to CBS News Atlanta, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens called the DNC’s decision proof of its being out of touch with the current political climate.

“The DNC does not consider Atlanta or Georgia relevant to the past, present, and future of the Democratic Party,” Dickens said. “Yet again, the DNC and Chairman Ken Martin have shown that they are unwilling to do the bare minimum to support the base of the party. Atlanta is the crown jewel of the Southeast, the Black economic engine of the country, and the cradle of the civil rights movement. They are afraid to leave their comfort zone and blind to the fact that the South is the answer. They are abandoning Atlanta, abandoning the South, and once again abandoning Black voters.”

The last southern city to host the DNC was Charlotte, North Carolina and Atlanta itself hasn’t played host since 1998. So, in that case, I can see his point. The South shouldn’t be ignored by the party. Especially at a time when all of the gains in terms of voting rights made during the Civil Rights Movement are being gerrymandered away thanks to the Supreme Court’s Calais decision.

But one of the things that the South has working against it is that many of its states are Right to Work states. While unions might be stronger in Atlanta than in other parts of the state, Georgia is still a right to work state. That might have been a dealbreaker for the union base of the DNC.

Also, from what I understand, the Pennsylvania Conventions and Visitors Bureau pulled out all the stops in its presentation to the DNC at its recent meeting in Texas. It’s hard to compete with Tastykakes and Patti LaBelle, even if you know she’s not going to sing at that presentation.
(Tastykakes, and Patti LaBelle, have been Philly’s secret weapon for a while. I have a story I’ll share about that another time.)

And I guess I should point out the obvious, which is that Black voters reside in all of the states in the top three. Especially Philadelphia.

That said, while I know that this won’t endear me to my friends at the Convention and Visitors Bureau, I have my reservations with the DNC bringing the traveling roadshow that is the Democratic National Convention back to the City of Brotherly Love.

It’s not because I don’t think the city can handle it. If nothing else, Philly has once again proven this summer that it’s more than capable of handling big events. While the One Philly concert was a pretty expensive bust and the tourists coming to Philly for World Cup might not have left as much profit for the restaurants that charge $8 for a cup of coffee, Welcome America as a whole and the MLB All-Star Game made the city a few bucks.

Where I have some trepidation is in the timing. While I realize that Philly is the largest city in a swing state that Democrats are going to need to stop the Republicans from turning Project 2025 into Project 2029, the city — and by extension the Commonwealth — have some pretty important fish to fry.

With an audit of the School District of Philadelphia, the planned closing of 17 schools, and municipal elections coming up, the city doesn’t necessarily need the distraction of convention planning.

And let’s be honest here. While Philly is no longer the poorest city of its size in America, the number of people that will tell you that there are better things that the city could be doing with the millions of dollars it will have to raise to pull this convention off numbers into the thousands, if not more.

(As someone who still has that refrain ringing in her ears from the summer events, I’m not looking forward to it.)

I get it. Tourism is one of the city’s biggest industries. People feed their families on conventions, special events and other large gatherings.
But the city might consider not fighting so hard for this one. They’ll be others.

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