GOP zeal to avoid money frenzy could boost Dallas’ convention bid
WASHINGTON — Just six weeks before the opening gavel at the 2012 Republican convention, the Tampa host committee was still short nearly $30 million. Half the funds the city had promised to raise from civic boosters, party bigwigs and business interests hadn’t materialized.
Invoices were piling up. Thousands of delegates and other visitors were on the way. A party that can’t pay its bills isn’t likely to engender voter trust. This was a potential crisis — severe enough for Mitt Romney’s campaign to step in.
“We asked for their help. We were concerned,” said the host committee chairman, Al Austin, a Tampa developer and top financier among Florida Republicans. “Listen, lemme tell you something. There were a lot of anxious moments.”
GOP officials say avoiding that sort of heartburn in 2016 is their No. 1 priority in choosing their next convention city. That could bode well for Dallas, one of eight cities in the contest and, as it happens, a capital of both corporate America and the Republican donor class.
More at http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/headlines/20140316-gop-zeal-to-avoid-money-frenzy-could-boost-dallas-convention-bid.ece .
Cross-posted in the Politics 2014 forum.
