A Party Goes to san Francisco

The Democrats pick Reagan's backyard for their convention

Washington wooed members of the Democratic site-selection committee with Bavarian souffles, designer tote bags with their names inscribed and a boat trip on the Potomac. Chicago courted them with an energetic mayor-elect and a bubbly champagne brunch. Detroit, with its high unemployment and strong unions, presented itself as an ideal backdrop for Democratic issues.

In the end, however, the party rejected these ardent suitors and opted to go west. Meeting in Washington last week, the Democrats tapped San Francisco as the setting for their 1984 national convention. "We're taking the election right into Ronald Reagan's backyard," said Democratic National Committee Chairman Charles Manatt, a Los Angeles lawyer who appointed the 27 members of the committee and who pushed hard to steer the convention into his home state. Said jubilant San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein: "Whoopee!"

San Francisco, which realized that Los Angeles could hardly play host to both the convention and the 1984 Summer Olympics, had to overcome intense eleventh-hour lobbying efforts by Detroit Mayor Coleman Young, Washington Mayor Marion Barry and Chicago's Harold Washington, who argued that the selection of one of their cities would be taken by black Democrats as a significant gesture. When San Francisco won, not everyone took the news well. Snapped a petulant Young: "It is one of the most volatile cities in the country." Complained Chicago Sun-Times Columnist Mike Royko: "Do the Democrats want to be thought of as the party of quiche eaters and wine sippers?"

The Democrats last held a national convention in San Francisco in 1920, nominating Ohio Governor James Cox; he was trounced by Warren G. Harding. The Republicans had equally bad luck with the choice they made at the Cow Palace in 1964: Barry Goldwater. This time 5,242 delegates and alternates, along with some 20,000 members of the press and campaign staffers, will see if a winner can be picked at the nearly two-year-old Moscone Convention Center. The weeklong party, scheduled to begin July 16, 1984, will cost the city nearly $8 million and will bring in more than $36 million, according to the estimates of city officials.

When the committee visited San Francisco in March, Mayor Feinstein was ready with an impressive dry run at the convention center. The committee was also feted with a testimonial dinner for a local developer that netted $350,000 for the D.N.C. and promised expanded police security (about 3,500 officers) and as many as 20,000 hotel rooms for conventioneers.

Party leaders brushed aside concerns about possible demonstrations by the city's gay community and the logistics of the Pacific time zone, which may cause some convention events to be telecast in the East after midnight. Manatt argued that the Democrats have neglected the Western states and paid for it in poor showings by the party's presidential candidates in the West since 1972. The last Democratic Convention that went west was the 1960 one that nominated John F. Kennedy in Los Angeles. Said Manatt: "Once every 24 years isn't too often." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.