Politico:

While excitement is building for a Democratic Party convention capped by Barack Obama’s historic acceptance speech before a sold-out, 75,000-seat football stadium, the GOP convention the following week is shaping up to be a considerably more staid affair, marked by the conspicuous absence of many of the usual convention attendees [...] Of the 12 Republicans running in competitive Senate races — five of whom are incumbents — only three have said they will be attending the convention. Six are definite no-shows, and three are on the fence. “Nobody likes a funeral,” said a Senate Republican press secretary who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing “the overall climate of general malaise about the party” as the reason for hesitance on the part of Republicans. On the House side, according to a report in The Hill, during a July 31 conference call National Republican Campaign Committee Chairman Tom Cole of Oklahoma discouraged congressional hopefuls from attending, saying that doing so would potentially be a “waste of time.”

Ouch.

Furthermore, Republicans appear upset that the convention is in American's heartland.

The political environment is just one explanation behind the absence of convention fever. Many GOP lobbyists also have decided the convention isn’t worth the trip — despite the seemingly limitless networking and schmoozing opportunities — in part because of logistics and location. In 2004, D.C.-based conventioneers could zip in and out of New York City by train. The 2000 convention in Philadelphia was an even shorter ride.

It's like DC has a forcefield around it, and it's so hard for Republicans to break out of that bubble. Yet they talk so much about the heartland, and pretend to know what "regular Americans" think, that it's surprising that they wouldn't want to go and hang out in fly-over territory at least once every decade or so. But apparently, while New York is good enough for this crowd, Minnesota isn't.

“I would definitely say that people aren’t as excited about going to Minneapolis as they were about going to New York City,” said Matthew Keelen, president of the Keelen Group, a D.C.-based lobbying firm. “Minneapolis is a nice city, but it doesn’t quite have the environment and reputation of a New York City, and I think 2004 was a unique convention and a lot of it had to do with where it was,” he said.

As much as they claim to hate liberal NYC, turns out that's just been empty rhetoric. They actually hate middle America.

Ultimately, as the article goes on to note, venue owners in Minneapolis-St. Paul are wondering why no one is booking their facilities. Turns out few people give a damn about the GOP convention. Meanwhile, Denver is facing a space-crunch of epic proportions, with space so hard to find, that we had to literally erect a big tent for the Big Tent.

A reporter asked me recently if I would attend the GOP convention. I told her that I wouldn't, since no one had bothered to set up anything similar to the Big Tent in Minnesota. You think someone would've taken the initiative to do so, but it's quite clear that no one cares enough to go through the hassles.

So yeah, Denver appears fated to be party central in a couple of weeks, while the RNC effort looks to be a funeral.

Look for that to be the topic of the next McCain ad, because remember -- excitement and intensity of support are now bad things.

Update: These guys announced yesterday that they'll be providing blogger space in St. Paul. Cool.