I’m… rather surprised that anyone is polling this:
Results released Tuesday of a CNN/Opinion Research poll shows Cleveland, the largest city in Ohio’s most populous county, leads three other cities as the preferred location for Democrats to hold their 2012 presidential convention…
Of the 1,008 adult Americans contacted by telephone by Opinion Research Corporation on December 17-19, 2010, 29 percent opted for Cleveland, while 22 percent went for Charlotte, North Carolina, 21 percent went for Minneapolis, Minnesota and 17 percent went for St. Louis, Missouri. Another 11 percent offered another city or had no opinion.
Obviously, Ohio is likely to be a key swing state this year, although there’s been little evidence to suggest that picking a city for the national convention helps the party win that city’s state. It didn’t work for Republicans in 2008 (St. Paul, Minnesota), 2004 (New York City), 2000 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) or 1996 (San Diego, California). In all of those cycles, the Democrat nominee won the state that hosted his party’s convention, although they were usually pretty safe: 2008 (Denver, Colorado), 2004 (Boston, Massachusetts), 2000 (Los Angeles, California) and 1996 (Chicago, Illinois).
Perhaps Cleveland is getting a bit of post-LeBron sympathy.