The Democrats’ choice of Chicago to host their 2024 national convention is likely to call attention to fissures within the party over policing and crime.
Chicago is a major city and longtime Democratic bastion.
It is also in the midst of a major crime wave that catapulted the incumbent mayor from office, only to elect a more liberal replacement with a history of support for defunding the police.
The city is held up by Republicans as a symbol of Democratic mismanagement of urban areas, especially on crime. Incoming Mayor Brandon Johnson is espousing positions President Joe Biden has tried to distance Democrats from ahead of 2024.
“I can speak to, and as we've done many times here, is speak to the president's record,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters when asked about Johnson the day after he won. “[Biden] believes that we should find the police and give law enforcement the resources they need for effective accountability and community policing.”
Republicans were quick to point all this out following the announcement of Chicago as the site of the 2024 Democratic National Convention.
“Democrats just chose one of the worst-run cities in America for their convention: Chicago,” said Republican National Committee rapid response director Tommy Pigott. “The city is so poorly run, incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot received less than 17% of the vote in the city’s recent election.”
Pigott highlighted news stories about violent crime, business failures, school closures, and political corruption in an email blast to reporters Tuesday.
“Democrats must think a city averaging more than a murder a day is the ideal city to showcase,” the National Republican Congressional Committee's press secretary Will Reinert said, adding in a statement, “What's the bigger concern: sirens drowning out nominating speeches or what items attendees must leave at home to make room for their bulletproof vest in their suitcase?"
The subject line of Reinert’s email was “Dodging bullets at the DNC convention.”
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens congratulated Chicago in a statement, saying he was “confident in their ability to provide President Biden a world-class nominating convention.” But the Democrat’s disappointment was palpable and he took a not too subtle dig at the choice.
“Georgia is the battleground that will decide the 2024 election and Atlanta is the city that will deliver for Democrats up and down the ballot,” Dickens said. Georgia was key to Biden’s 2020 victory and Democratic control of the Senate, pushing the party up to 51 seats just last year, even as Republicans prevailed in every other statewide race.
Chicago was the scene of the disastrous 1968 Democratic Convention, when antiwar protestors clashed with police. It highlighted Democratic divisions over the Vietnam War, civil rights, and the counterculture, in addition to a larger generational gap among party leaders. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, leader of the city’s political machine, was seen shouting profanities on national television.
Convention sites are often chosen for symbolic purposes. Democrats gathered in Milwaukee in 2020 after losing Wisconsin to former President Donald Trump four years earlier, though it was largely virtual because of the pandemic. Republicans met in New York City in their first national convention after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to renominate President George W. Bush, while Democrats trekked to John Kerry’s home city of Boston.
But these choices can carry negative connotations. Jeane Kirpatrick lambasted “San Francisco Democrats” in her 1984 Republican National Convention speech, hitting the city where the Democratic National Convention had just concluded as indicative of a leftward shift. Nikki Haley substantially reprised Kirkpatrick’s remarks at the GOP convention in 2020.
Republicans won the 1968 and 1984 presidential elections.
Convention cities can also prove meaningless to national campaigns, since they are often held in politically safe areas or other dynamics are much more important to the race.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE IN THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The Democratic National Committee, which chose the city, is stacked with Biden loyalists.
Nevertheless, “Chicago Democrats” was probably not the branding Biden was going for in his likely reelection bid.