By Elise Dickens, Committee on Arrangements (COA) CEO
It was the best of conventions; it was the worst of conventions. It was the age of wisdom; it was the age of foolishness… and it’s a tale that Milwaukee, the back-to-back host of the 2020 Democrat and now 2024 GOP national conventions, will intimately understand.
The Republican National Committee is diligently laying the groundwork for a historic Convention in 100 short days in Milwaukee. Our goal for the Convention is not only to launch President Donald J. Trump’s campaign to victory in November, but to bring the world to Milwaukee and showcase Milwaukee to the world.
To accomplish these goals, we are harnessing everything that Milwaukee and Wisconsin have to offer. The almost 50,000 delegates, officials, members of the media, and other guests from across the country that will descend on Milwaukee this summer for our Convention represent 50,000 potential opportunities for Wisconsin businesses. These guests will be 50,000 potential spokespeople for Wisconsin when they go back to their home states to tell their friends, family, and neighbors about their week in Milwaukee.
That’s why we have prioritized organizing a Wisconsin-focused Convention at every step of the way. We made – and honored – a pledge, for instance, to keep 100 percent of Convention hotel contracts in Wisconsin. Since hotels serve as the ‘headquarters’ for delegations and other groups to gather, we want our delegates and guests to live and breathe Wisconsin during Convention week.
We’re prioritizing Wisconsin vendors and local drivers to handle the Convention’s extensive transportation needs. Of the nearly 500 coach buses, golfcarts, and minibuses that we’ll need to ferry delegates and guests in and around Milwaukee, over a third have been sourced from Wisconsin vendors.
We’re also promoting Wisconsin businesses in our partner venue guide sent to delegations and groups attending the Convention, introducing our guests to local businesses…free of charge.
If the Republican National Convention’s emphasis on showcasing and investing in Wisconsin appears unprecedented, that’s because it is – even before the Democrats ended up bailing on their Milwaukee convention almost entirely in 2020, they were never as invested in Wisconsin as we have been.
Democrat convention officials, for example, planned to house delegates and guests’ at hotels in neighboring Illinois. Much worse, they demanded as much as 10 percent of gross revenue earned during their convention week from small businesses in Milwaukee if they wanted convention-related business steered their way (at least they didn’t ask for another 10 percent for the “big guy”).
This RNC-DNC Milwaukee dichotomy is emblematic of the bigger picture of what’s at stake in November. Just as Democrats were full of pomp and talk for their Milwaukee convention, Joe Biden – during the little campaigning he did manage to do in 2020 – promised the world to the American people. And just as the Democrats’ convention was for Milwaukee, Biden has been a disappointment for our nation.
Biden pledged to “to restore, and rebuild, and respect the backbone of America, the middle class” back in 2019. Nearly five years later, the middle class has seen their real wages eaten away by inflation with higher prices at the grocery store and gas pump.
The Biden team went from proclaiming that the “adults are back in charge” to gaslighting, backtracking, and trying to pivot away from their failures handling a raging border crisis, a botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, conflict between Russia and Ukraine, a struggling economy, Hamas’ brutal war against Israel, and even MIA cabinet secretaries.
“Typical politician,” then-candidate Donald Trump said of Secretary Hilary Clinton in 2016, “all talk, no action. Sounds good, doesn’t work. Never gonna happen.”
It turns out that the same applies to Biden and the rest of his Democrats. We are going to turn the page on Biden and his failures in November with a victory that will once again usher in prosperity and stability for the American people. The 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee will be our time to kick it all off.
