New York City’s Clinton-approved campaign to host the next Democratic National Convention launched in earnest at Barclays Center today, where Senator Chuck Schumer got to flex his incredibly buff self-promotion muscles. “There is no place that says ‘The American dream burns brightly’ better than Brooklyn,” he said while putting down competitors like Philadelphia, Columbus, Birmingham, and Phoenix. “To say we don’t have hotel space is a canard. We have better hotel space than any other city and it’s closer to the convention center than it has been in most of the other cities. Believe me, I was there — I sat in the traffic in L.A., sat on the buses in Chicago, tried to find my way around Charlotte and all those highways.”
Jay Z, Lena Dunham, Big Daddy Kane, and Jackie Robinson were apparently invoked. “We have swag on lockdown,” added City Councilwoman Laurie A. Cumbo.
Also, swag in the old-fashioned sense, the New York Times reports:
Among other gifts provided for visitors, according to a preliminary itinerary for the trip, were a set of iPads pre-loaded with city-specific apps; a “Brooklyn welcome goodie bag” in members’ rooms at the Palace Hotel; and a “Mayor de Blasio pen.” (It was not immediately clear what distinguished this from a common pen.)
We hear Ohio still uses paper books and pencils.
