Mayor Dickens says city of Atlanta has put in official bid to host 2024 DNC

WSBTV.com News Staff
·2 min read
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Mayor Andre Dickens announced Friday night that the city of Atlanta has made a bid to host the next Democratic National Convention.

Dickens made the announcement during the Democratic Party of Georgia State Dinner Friday night.

The last time the DNC was held in Georgia was in 1988. At the convention Gov. Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts was nominated for president and Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas for vice president.

It served as a good warm-up for the 1996 Summer Olympics, and lessons learned then helped shaped the Atlanta of today.

Pres. Bill Clinton made one of the biggest impressions at the convention. Clinton, who gave the speech nominating Dukakis as the party’s standard-bearer, talked for 33 minutes, twice the allotted time, and showed little of the charisma that would later help him become president.

The Atlanta Chamber of Commerce estimated the immediate take from the convention was $70 million.

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Dukakis left Atlanta feeling a lot of love. A Newsweek magazine poll released the Saturday after the DNC showed Dukakis leading George H.W. Bush by 17 percentage points. But the July romance faded before you could finish the first chorus of “Summer Nights.” In November, Bush won with 53.37% of the popular vote and 411 out of a possible 535 electoral votes.

“The formal call for proposals from the Democratic National Committee launches a quadrennial process that can bring nearly 5,000 delegates and as many as 45,000 other people to a host city for a four-night extravaganza, with dozens of sideline events and parties, aimed at unifying the country behind a presidential nominee,” the Washington Post said in a recent article.

Cities will have to submit their proposals by May 27 to be considered.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution contributed to this article.

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