City Goes After Convention, for Better or Worse : Politics: San Diego is apparently the No. 1 contender to host Republican delegates in the summer of 1992.

The lure is the 1992 Republican Convention--which critics say won’t help tourism, comes at the wrong time and is too expensive for a city that has no money.

The city is San Diego--which today is wooing the GOP by escorting delegates from the Republican National Committee to such sites as the zoo, Sea World and San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

Almost everyone involved says San Diego is the No. 1 contender for the event.

“It’s hardly a done deal,” said Paul Downey, the spokesman for Mayor Maureen O’Connor, “but we feel very confident.”

“The convention would be of incredible value to the city,” said Downey, whose boss, despite being a Democrat, wrote a letter to President Bush in September that catapulted the city into the elite of leading contenders.

Political insiders say San Diego’s chances are greatly aided by White House official Sig Rogich, who is assistant to the president for public events and initiatives. Rogich, a former Las Vegas ad executive, is reported to be San Diego’s biggest backer and a confidante of the president.

Downey and other boosters estimate the economic impact as between $50 million and $100 million. The convention would follow on the heels of the America’s Cup, the promoters of which say may bring in as much as $900 million.

And, Downey and others say it’s no problem that the sailing regatta, the baseball All-Star Game and two major arts festivals are already scheduled for that summer.

“With the country facing a recession, San Diego needs to do everything it can to make itself recession-proof,” he said. “That’s the mayor’s goal, and it’s a happy problem to have too many events than too few.”

But while some herald the convention as one more sign of the coming of age of America’s sixth-largest city, others say it’s further evidence of San Diego wanting to be bigger than it is.

Critics cite the city’s recent struggle with a $60-million budget deficit until a series of controversial cuts were finally made. O’Connor has said not a penny of public money will go toward the GOP, although millions are being offered by rival contenders Cleveland, Houston, New Orleans and St. Petersburg, Fla.

Gordon Clanton, a sociologist and political analyst at San Diego State University, said, “So who pays the additional expense, such as police and fire protection? To say such events benefit the community as a whole is really a bogus notion.

“We’ve heard it in connection with the America’s Cup, the baseball All-Star Game, the Super Bowl and now this. Usually, these events benefit a handful of people but are always sold differently.

“Part of the problem is, San Diego has an inferiority complex. It wants to be perceived as just as important as every other big city, but is it, really? It has to do with the gap of being the sixth-largest city in the country as opposed to the 17th-largest metropolitan area and the 26th major media market. The gap is a constant measure of the city’s insecurity.”

Officials for the new San Diego Convention Center said earlier that playing host to the Republicans would complicate scheduling for events are already booked for the summer of ’92.

Tom Liegler, the center’s general manager, said Wednesday that while it would be “a privilege” to host the convention, many unanswered questions remain. He wants to know the exact window of time the GOP would want--some say as much as six weeks, which means a number of existing bookings would have to be cleared. And, of course, there’s always the question of who will pay.

“I’m told that both the Democrats and Republicans usually want host cities to pick up anywhere between $8 million and $10 million,” Liegler said. “So, the question is, if no public money is being used, who would pay for that?”

Republican sources say private money is the most likely source. As Liegler said, the city must be a top contender, because the GOP “seems to be pursuing us more than we’re pursuing them.”

The head of the San Diego County Hotel-Motel Assn. said Wednesday that his group now “strongly favors” the convention and is backing it “every step of the way.”

Reint Reinders, the president of the group, said the city maintains about 40,000 hotel rooms but needs only 17,000 on the convention’s “peak nights.”

“True, August (the month the convention is scheduled) is a terrifically busy time for us, so some tourists would have to stay away, because conventioneers would be filling their rooms,” Reinders said.

Asked to assess the convention’s pros and cons, Reinders said, “I don’t think it would ever be a bad thing. It’s a good thing because of the tremendous publicity it creates. It would take place on prime-time TV throughout the country, with an August sunset, the Convention Center and the bay serving as the backdrop to George Bush’s renomination. Why, you can’t buy that kind of exposure. I think it’s wonderful. It could be an incredible spectacle.”

Bill Wilson, the manager of San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, said that he had been approached by city and GOP officials, who may want the use of his facility for as much as two nights, if not the entire convention.

Liegler said he had been told that the GOP would stage all of its events at either the Convention Center or the stadium or alternate between both sites. He said those are among the questions to be decided later in the week by city and GOP officials.

Wilson said he was first asked for a “six-week window” of time in the summer of ‘92, and he laughed, telling them it would be impossible. The stadium is home to baseball’s Padres and football’s Chargers, both of which use the stadium during August.

As it is, Wilson said he can provide a two-week window to ready the stadium for what Reinders calls “the spectacle,” but no more than that.

The America’s Cup sailing regatta finishes its finals in San Diego in May of that year, just two months before the Major League All-Star Game and three months before the convention. But Tom Ehman, head of the America’s Cup Organizing Committee, said the convention would pose “no direct conflict” with his event.

“In terms of planning, the convention is a massive undertaking,” Ehman said. “And there are only so many volunteers in a community such as this willing to help out with an America’s Cup or a convention. It’s a double-edged sword, really. You may have a lot of people burned out and not wanting to help with a big convention. But on the other hand, a lot of people may be up and running and ready to go, more skilled at helping out with the convention than they would have been before.”

Ehman said he had been contacted by various unnamed officials, wanting to know if the America’s Cup media center, the site of which has yet to be determined, could be maintained and used for the convention. Ehman said yes.

Downey says that as many as 16,000 media representatives may come to the city for the GOP political convention, and the publicity is something San Diego can’t pass up.

Analyst Clanton speculates that the Democrats--of whom he is one--are making a serious mistake by looking toward New York for their ’92 convention, while the Republicans are cleverly eyeing an upbeat, relatively healthy Sun Belt city.

As Downey said, San Diego is “an important swing city in a swing state” with the largest number of electoral votes.

Much of the attractiveness is economic. If recession is a full-blown reality by the summer of ‘92, San Diego is not expected to fare as badly as the rest of the country, and that may lure Republicans.

“It could be a case of the rest of the country having the flu and us just having a cold,” Ehman said.

Sociologist Clanton said the so-called spectacle factor may be the No. 1 reason San Diego is so attractive to the GOP, at a time when other cities are courting the party much more seriously and with much fatter pocketbooks.

“Despite our mayor, who, at best is a nominal Democrat, what other city in the country is more Republican than San Diego?” Clanton said. “We have, for the most part, a Republican (City) Council and Republicans running nearly everything else.

“In the eyes of the nation, San Diego looks incredibly conservative. The perception is, it’s all white, all blue eyes, all Republicans, all Navy, and what could be better for the GOP--especially with war and a major recession looming as possibilities?”