Four cities are vying for the right to host the 2016 GOP convention. | AP Photos Cities vie to host '16 GOP convention

Kansas City wowed with local BBQ and jazz. Phoenix evoked images of hot summer days at the pool and cool desert nights. Las Vegas hosted an open bar and boasted about its 150,000 hotel rooms and top-notch convention facilities. Denver dispensed Coors beer and Broncos swag.

The race to host the 2016 Republican National Convention is on.


As Republican National Committee members descended on Washington this week for its winter meeting, delegations from a handful of cities aggressively worked to woo the GOP leaders as they begin the process of picking their 2016 convention city.

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“It’s sort of a love-fest,” said Montana GOP Chairman Will Deschamps. “As voters within the RNC, we get lots of swag.”

Free food and goodies aside, representatives of the cities had more serious messages. Several pitched their home towns as representating the kind of political image the Republican Party needs to promote: appealing to minorities, making inroads in states with rapidly changing demographics and modernizing the GOP message.

Five cities showed up and had an almost constant presence throughout the three-day meeting: Las Vegas, Kansas City, Denver, Phoenix and Columbus. Pressing their case with big-name surrogates and receptions, they participated in what’s become a time-honored tradition of pampering RNC members in the hopes they’ll stop to hear each city’s pitch.

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On Friday, RNC members elected a nine-person site selection panel that will study the bids, tour the cities and recommend its final pick sometime this summer. The party had previously announced that former Utah congresswoman and current RNC Committeewoman Enid Mickelsen would head the committee.

RNC members say that some of the strongest convention bids can sometimes end up coming from cities without a splashy display at RNC meetings.

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But showing up to woo the party faithful is “an indicator of how serious they are,” said former Michigan RNC Committeewoman Holly Hughes, who headed the 2012 selection process. “Those that are actively trying to court the RNC right now—I would imagine that they’re more serious than others. But that doesn’t necessarily preclude or stop another city from winning the convention.”

Kansas City and Las Vegas had the most visible presence at this week’s gathering at Washington’s Renaissance Hotel.

Kansas City’s host committee held a reception for RNC members at Del Campo, a South American grillhouse in downtown D.C., complete with BBQ, Kansas City jazz—and a visit from former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole. The pitch: It is the city that personifies America’s heartland, with top-notch “hospitality and energy” and its “bi-state” location, said Jon Stephens, CEO of the Kansas City Conventions & Visitors Association.

“The feedback has been very positive thus far,” Stephens said. “A lot of the questions [we’ve gotten] just reinforce the strength of Kansas City: that we’re easily accessible, that we’re a major-league convention city, that we have a great transportation infrastructure.”

Las Vegas set up lounges near the hotel meeting rooms and handed out fleeces, trucker hats and leather portfolios. Its supporters were quick to point out its 150,000 hotel rooms and ability to accommodate everyone within a square-mile radius. And with GOP megadonor and resort owner Sheldon Adelson fully on board, the city will have a head start in fundraising over others in the running.

“Really, no other city can compete with the infrastructure that we have available to host the convention,” said Nevada Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, who’s helping head the Las Vegas 2016 effort. “Our challenge… is just to convey that to the members and the folks who will be chosen to the site selection committee.”

Of course, the capital of gambling, strip clubs and debauchery will have to overcome resistance within the party of conservative family values.

“Some people are concerned about having [the convention] in a city that has legalized gambling,” said Connecticut RNC Committeeman John Frey, who served on the 2012 selection committee.

Phoenix put its local cuisine on display at a Thursday night reception, serving nachos and churros and featuring a performance by a onetime contestant on the NBC singing show “The Voice.” The city’s convention slogan: “Rise of the Republicans: Phoenix 2016.”

Denver just hosted the Democratic convention in 2008, so its advocates say it has already proven it’s capable of pulling off an event of this magnitude. Standing next to a table with Denver goodies and six-packs of Coors beer, state GOP Chairman Ryan Call said the city is a natural choice because Colorado “is on the leading edge of a lot of major public policy battlegrounds.”

It’s also a bipartisan effort: Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper and Democratic Denver Mayor Michael Hancock are both actively involved in the host committee efforts, and attended a fundraising reception for it in Denver last week.

Las Vegas, Denver and Phoenix appeal to RNC members because the cities are at the epicenter of demographic change that contributed to Republican losses in 2012. For the party to be competitive in 2016, many have acknowledged, it needs to do a better job speaking to booming minority populations.

“Forty-five percent of our population is Hispanic, and I think the party needs to appeal to those voters,” said Gordon James, a spokesman for the Phoenix host committee.

The RNC solicited bids from two dozen potential host cities in November, inviting them to submit proposals by the end of February. The site selection committee will hear presentations in Washington in the next few months and narrow the list down to three finalists. At that point it will schedule multi-day visits to each finalist city and make a final recommendation.

An RNC official said to expect news on the city sometime this summer. (Democrats typically choose their convention city much later: a DNC official said the party likely won’t name a host city until early next year.)

But despite the fact that the RNC’s official process is just beginning, interested cities have been working behind the scenes for months. Hosting a party convention can be an enormous economic and PR boon, guaranteeing tens of thousands of hotel bookings and days of nonstop media coverage.

But it also requires a huge up-front expense, not to mention the logistical and security challenges of accommodating 50,000 attendees and members of the media.

In interviews this week, many RNC members said their biggest consideration for a convention site is the proximity of hotels — a problem in Tampa in 2012, when some delegations stayed more than an hour away from the venue.

Though a decision is months off, RNC members certainly were paying attention to the cities’ pitches this week.

“Perception does matter,” said South Carolina GOP Chairman Matt Moore. “Professionalism does matter.”