ROGER SIMON: Who Is to Blame If Nashville Doesn’t Get the 2024 Republican Convention It so Richly Deserves?

The two finalists in the competition for the 2024 Presidential Convention are Nashville, Tennessee, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

As of July 15, 2022, Milwaukee is very much in the lead. . . . I have reason to believe that Nashville’s behavior may well not have been “forthright and professional,” but this’s still a huge mistake.

One of the major reasons for national political conventions is publicity for the party and its candidate by making people want to attend in person or to watch on television. Indeed, this is likely the most important reason.

No city in the United States is more prepared for this than Nashville, other than Las Vegas. Indeed, downtown Nashville has been nicknamed NashVegas for a reason. People from all over the world want to come here for the music and excitement.

And, boy, do they! Hotels are springing up faster than weeds in most people’s backyards, but these weeds are high-rises with swanky cocktail lounges on the roof and a couple of restaurants off the lobbies featuring James Beard prize chefs. Also, most of the attractions, like my favorites the Johnny Cash Museum and the Country Music Hall of Fame, are within walking distance, as are the natural convention venues the Bridgestone Arena and the Music City Center. The place is just fun. I felt that way when I moved here four years ago and still do.

As for Milwaukee, from what I understand, visitors, and perhaps the press, will have to stay an unappealing hour from the venue, making it extraordinarily inconvenient for most anyone but the VIPs. I have no comment on Milwaukee’s actual fun quotient, since I have never been there.

Now I’m not writing this as a Nashville booster or because I have a personal desire for the convention to be here. I don’t. It’s an annoyance. In my capacity as a journalist, I have been there and done that at several conventions and can attest to the hellacious traffic, impossible parking, and long lines for just about everything.

I’m writing this as a citizen who would like to see a Donald Trump—on his revenge tour—or a Gov. Ron DeSantis or whoever is nominated to get the maximum national publicity to win. In that regard, Nashville versus Milwaukee is a no-brainer. And, please, Milwaukeeans, I mean no offense.

So the question remains—assuming I’m correct, and of course, since this is my column, I do—why was such a mistake made? . . .

As another person most definitely “in a position to know” told me emphatically, it is Nashville and Tennessee officials, high and low, who are really to blame for their city losing out on some $200 million in immediate revenue, not to mention whatever accrued—possibly an incomprehensible amount—from being the epicenter of the entire globe for a full week. Only the Olympic Games are watched more worldwide by television audiences than the American Presidential Conventions. And 2024, because so much of our futures are at stake, promises to be even bigger.

Putatively, whether Nashville could have the convention was to be decided by the 40-member Metro Council, a collection of part-time politicos the majority of whom have views to the left of Trotsky. Having a Republican anywhere near them gives them hives, and the thought of admitting their convention to the city, even if it brings in hundreds of millions, is anathema.

Get woke, go broke.