Columbus Mayor Tries Political Blackmail to Lure DNC

Since Philly is still making a bid to host the 2016 Democratic National Convention, we’re checking in now and again to see how our competing cities are doing. For example, Columbus, Ohio Mayor Michael Coleman this week tried, well, a little political blackmail to lure the convention to his town.

Politico reports that Coleman noted that Cleveland is already hosting the Republican convention. If Dems want to win the swing state in 2016, he said, they’ll need to host their convention in the state, too.

“The Republican Party grabbing the convention in Cleveland has the potential of leaving this state to the Republican side in 2016,” Coleman said. “The Republicans are going to be in Cleveland, and that’s going to unfortunately have an impact on Ohio that might influence this race.

“The truth is that Ohio is going to be the determiner of who’s in the White House,” he added, noting that President Barack Obama, Republican nominee Mitt Romney and their respective running mates visited Columbus nearly 80 times in 2012.

We could try the same thing, I suppose, but given that Pennsylvania has sorta ceased to be a swing state — we’re Democrats when it comes to presidential politics — that might be hard to swing. We wonder if the DNC officials are aware the Philadelphia is the birthplace of American democracy? They are? OK, that’s all we got — but no fear: Congressman Bob Brady is almost certainly twisting arms on our behalf somewhere behind the scenes.