The Republican National Committee announced last Tuesday that the 2016 GOP convention will be held in Cleveland sometime in late June or mid July. As Bloomberg reported last week, “the GOP’s site selection committee has recommended June 28 or July 18, and RNC chairman Reince Priebus is said to prefer June.”
Strategists and news commentators, such as George Stephanopoulos, agree the site selection is “clearly smart,” but there is considerable debate regarding the timing of the event.
Stephanopoulos and Barack Obama’s former campaign manager, David Plouffe, discussed the matter Sunday on ABC’s “This Week”, with Plouffe calling the decision a “huge strategic blunder.”
I think it’s a huge strategic blunder. I mean the two things you absolutely control in a presidential campaign and a general election are your convention and the selection of your vice presidential nominee. Both of those things are now going to be over, essentially, before the summer.”
According to Bloomberg and other sources, “the rationale for an early convention is that it would allow the Republican nominee earlier access to general election campaign money. In 2012, Mitt Romney couldn’t access those funds until after the party’s late-August convention, and Republicans such as Priebus believe this helped cost Romney the election.”
Plouffe, however, disagrees telling Stephanopoulos that “As a party, you have two big weapons in a presidential race: the selection of the vice president and the convention. To potentially have those over by July 4th makes no sense.” Plouffe argues that in scheduling the convention so early, Republicans exhaust those two opportunities for national attention too early, while at the same time handing an advantage to Democrats.
“If the Democrats — they haven’t made their decision yet — but hold their convention at the end of August or in September, they’re going to have a huge crack at the American electorate right as they begin to pay attention to the election. so I think they’re learning the wrong lessons from why they last — lost.”
Plouffe also disagrees with the Republican’s rationale that accessing money earlier in the campaign will make any difference, noting: “They say it’s all because of the money. It wasn’t because of the money. In fact, the president got outspent most of the summer of 2012. So I think it’s a huge mistake.”
Of addition concern is the possible timing of the GOP Convention at the same time the NBA finals are being play, opening the door for LeBron James to upstage the meeting two years from now.
of Bloomberg’s “Business Week” spoke with Plouffe, who criticized the timing, “pointing out that a June convention would have to compete for viewers with the NBA finals—no easy task.”
In an interview with Fox News, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus also raised the complicating factor of the NBA championship, saying it was something that Republicans would need to work out.
You can watch Plouffe and Stephanopoulos discussing the convention in the clip, below, courtesy of ABC:
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