Atlanta Wins ’88 Convention of Democrats

Democrats decided Tuesday that their 1988 presidential convention will be in Atlanta, a choice made with an eye to rebuilding the party’s tattered electoral strength in the Southern states that once were its solid bastion.

“Everyone agrees that if we are going to be a competitive national party, we have to be competitive in the Southern part of the country,” said National Chairman Paul G. Kirk Jr., who described Atlanta as the “capital of the South.” In the last two presidential elections, the Democrats have carried only one Southern state, Georgia.

Atlanta got the votes of 44 members of the party’s site selection committee; runner-up Houston got 13 votes. The other finalists were Kansas City, Washington and New York, but by all accounts, the vote that counted most in the decision-making was not counted in that tally. It was that of the chairman, Kirk.

Houston Early Favorite

“The early sentiment of the committee was for Houston,” said one party official. He said that the Texas city “did a good job” of selling itself to the committee. One factor in Houston’s favor was the political importance of Texas, without whose support no Democrat in modern times has won the White House.

The main stumbling block to selecting Houston in Kirk’s mind, sources said, was that the city’s convention hall is still months away from completion. The convention is scheduled for July 18 to 21. Another difficulty with Houston, party sources said, was that to meet the requirement of 20,000 hotel rooms, accommodations far outside the downtown area had to be counted.

Atlanta also had its problems. Its convention hall has room for only 16,000 people--about 4,000 short of the capacity the party wanted--and could not accommodate all 4,200 delegates on one level.

The Republicans last month picked New Orleans as the site of their national convention, which is scheduled for Aug. 15-18.