They are gone

Well, the GOP people have left and the process[es] of assessment/reassessment has/have begun.

I think that Joe Soucheray has it right when he thinks that Mpls. pulled one over on our civic leaders. They got the money spenders and partiers and we got the barricades and protesters. And despite what our leaders say, they had to know that you cannot invite a convention without inviting protesters, both “legitimate” and other, when you invite a major party, especially the party in power to come to your city. I don’t know whether we will find out that our authorities overreacted to them or not. I suspect that the officials will have the official version, but history never has clear consensuses.

Mayor Coleman the Second tells us that the whole extravaganza was a success, but tell that to the people who tried to navigate through our city, to the businesspeople whose customers who could not find them, to the people whose medical procedures at United or St. Joseph’s had to be delayed, to the locally-licensed taxi drivers whose once-in-a-lifetime chance for a bonanza was taken away by authorities who decided to let anybody in the world with a top light on his/her car pretend to be driving a taxi. [Taxicab drivers in this city can tell you that this is nothing new, but the magnitude of the event made it seem worse. Check Grand Avenue late at night on any weekend or the Excel/NSP arena after any hockey game or big concert and take a look yourself, if you wish.]

Mayor Coleman the First was in his glory, bragging to delegates and whomever else was listening that he had made the building possible. Running for reelection to the Senate, he needed every chance he could want to bow.

Mayor Coleman the Second had assured us that business would not only be normal, but that there would be extra things for us to enjoy, including the display of an “original copy” [lovely oxymoron] of the Declaration of Independence at City Hall from Monday through Thursday.

That was a lie. I went there on Wednesday about noon and could not find it. CH/CH staff did not know where it had gone, but the man in building operations thought it might have gone to someplace on Summit Avenue. My own email inquiries have told me that it was there as late as Tuesday and have raised the suggestion that it was moved to a Summit Avenue residence for GOP fundraising purposes. I have not been informed of any more likely possibility, but am still willing to accept suggestions.

Eagle Street Grille hedged its bets by renting the whole place to CNN which brought in its own chef but allowed the local wait staff to work. But Soucheray notes that Mancini’s was almost empty. How can that be possible? And how can anybody think that any event designed to attract so many people with that much disposable money just a mile away who don’t make it to Mancini’s can be a good thing?

Of course, we did get to see “Saint Paul” or its truncated cousin “St. Paul” on a lot of printed and visual media, but does that make us feel that much better? And Minneapolis still got first billing on the convention logo.

They say that this was a “once in a lifetime’ event. Let’s hope that they are right.