Best for last? Democratic National Committee visiting Phoenix

PHOENIX — The city of Phoenix will put its best foot forward for members of the Democratic National Committee who are visiting the Valley this week.

“We are going to have a lot of delegates and a lot of interested parties coming into the city and we want to make sure they have the best experience possible,” DNC Chief Executive Officer Amy Dacey said.

The 15-member DNC group will be in Phoenix until Thursday and will look at the
US Airways Center, Chase Field and the Phoenix Convention Center — all in the
downtown area. They also will meet with members of the Phoenix 2016 Host Committee, city staff
and business leaders as well as nonprofit and labor leaders to discuss the bid.

Arizona has historically been a Republican state, but according to Dacey, that will not affect their decision.

“The DNC has been to red states and blue states,” she said. “We’re just looking for a city that can accommodate the requirements of a convention.

Mayor Greg Stanton said Phoenix has grown more diverse and reflective of the rest of the
country, citing its growing Latino population.

“Pretty soon, we’ll be hearing around the country that ‘So goes Arizona, so
goes our nation,'” Stanton said.

He also credited Gov. Jan Brewer, who famously shook her finger at President
Barack Obama during a visit to Phoenix, for writing a letter in support of the
city’s bid to host the convention.

Besides the voter landscape, Stanton touted expansions Phoenix has made in the
last decade with its light rail transit system and a sky train connecting the
rail to the airport.

Hosting duties would mean a huge boost to the local
economy. The 2008 Democratic National Convention brought in more than $260
million to Denver, Stanton said.

The committee is scheduled to head back to Washington, D.C., after their tour of Phoenix to decide which city will host the 2016 convention. Dacey said it will be a tough and important decision for the Democratic Party.

“We know that we are going to be nominating the 45th president of the United States in 2016 and we want to make sure that our convention is the best one yet,” she said.

Phoenix is the last city the committee will tour before deciding who will host the 2016 convention. Brooklyn, Columbus, Philadelphia, and Birmingham are also still in the running.

Bill Clinton was the last Democrat to carry Arizona in a presidential election
in 1996 but before that, Democrats had lost every presidential race in that
state since Harry Truman in 1948.

Joe Uscinski, a political science professor at the University of Miami, has
studied how national party convention locations have affected presidential
political campaigns back to 2000. Uscinski said he doubts choosing Phoenix will
drastically push Arizona to be a bluer or even purple state.

“I don’t’ see them getting a bunch of Republicans in Arizona getting swayed by
the Democratic Party,” Uscinski said. “All these people who supported SB1070
or all the Jan Brewer legislation, I don’t see them being like ‘The Democrats
are here. I’m going to vote for whomever — Hillary Clinton or something.'”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.