The biggest parties in U.S. politics will be held in two of the most dangerous cities in America.
A former conservative sheriff who has been an equal-opportunity critic of Democrats and Republicans wants to know what convention organizers are thinking.
The Republican National Committee will host its national convention — to anoint the GOP’s 2024 presidential candidate — July 15-18 in Milwaukee. The Democratic National Committee will hold its national convention a month later in Chicago.
Both Democrat-led cities have been ravaged by crime, particularly violent crime.
Let the good times roll.
Milwaukee is known for its beer, its motorcycles, and, increasingly, its murders. Wisconsin’s biggest city has broken homicide records in each of the last three years, with 214 murders last year. Milwaukee’s murder rate soared 95 percent between 2019 and 2020, well above the alarming 30 percent increase nationally, according to a report from the Pew Research Center. Over the past three years, Brew City has reported a 120 percent increase in homicides.
“It’s almost like the RNC hasn’t been following the news,” former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke said in an interview Tuesday with The Wisconsin Daily Star. “With crime being a major issue, I don’t understand why they would lead their delegates and convention-goers into those danger zones in the city of Milwaukee.”
Clarke, a national conservative activist, has been a RINO (Republicans in Name Only) hunter for years and is no fan of the Republican Party establishment. Near the top of that list is former RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, a “Wisconsin guy” and MKE 2024 Host Committee Chair who helped lure the 2024 convention to Milwaukee.
“For us as the Host Committee, I know it seems strange for me to say because I’m a Republican guy, but in this role, it’s about bringing the bacon for the community,” Priebus told WTMJ -TV in late February. “We will let the RNC worry about putting on a show for the convention.”
“You have to start now in fundraising because the host committee has got to raise, you know, well, north of $50 million for the convention,” he said.
Securing the four-day event and the tens of thousands of convention-goers, it brings will take up a big portion of those funds.
In 2016, security spending for the Republican National Convention in Cleveland surpassed $43 million, according to cleveland.com.
“The tallies reflect money spent on Cleveland police officers, outside law enforcement personnel brought into Cleveland to assist, equipment purchases and training,” the publication reported.
In Milwaukee, as many as 4,500 law enforcement officials from outside the city could help secure the convention, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Cavalier Johnson, the city’s leftist mayor, told the publication he doesn’t want people to feel “over-policed,” though.
Fiserv Forum, where the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks play, is to be the centerpiece of the political convention. The arena is located in Milwaukee’s heralded Deer District, a part of downtown that has become increasingly dangerous. Ahead of the NBA playoffs, the Bucks, Milwaukee Police, and the so-called Milwaukee Office of Violence Prevention issued an advisory, begging game-goers to help prevent violence. Last year’s playoffs were marred by several incidents of violence, including 21 people injured in three separate shootings in the Deer District.
Last weekend, police say country music concert-goers escaped injury when their party bus was struck by gunfire on Milwaukee’s 35th Street and Wisconsin Avenue. The owner of the transportation company said the bus was caught in the middle of a drive-by-shooting between two vehicles and a street full of people.
Wisconsin remains an important political battleground state, with its 10 delegates considered critical to the path to presidential victory. Milwaukee beat out Nashville, a deep red state, in the pursuit of the Republican National Convention.
But Clarke said playing politics could prove costly for the RNC.
“You’ve got to ask yourself, what about safety?” the former sheriff said. “With all the crime going on, all they need is one tragic incident where a convention-goer is killed or hurt. It would cast a shadow over the convention.”
Republican political strategist Anne Hathaway, who served as an aide to former Vice President Dan Quayle, is leading organizational efforts for the convention. Hathaway did not return The Daily Star’s request for comment.
In Chicago, law enforcement recorded 697 homicides in 2022, down from 802 the year before. Last year, however, ranks among the highest homicide years since 2000. Chicago held the dubious distinction of being the murder capital of the United States, by number, ranking 13th in rate with 25.8 homicides per 100,000, according to a report by wirepoints.org.
As of Tuesday, 143 people had been murdered this year in Chicago, according to a Chicago Tribune database. That includes at least 11 killed (26 wounded) in incidents involving guns last weekend alone.
Homicides and violent crimes so far in 2023 are down in Chicago and Milwaukee, city officials boast. But it sure doesn’t feel that way.
Conservative columnist Liz Peek last week wrote that Chicago is a perfect convention pick for a Democratic Party that has, through its soft-on-crime policies, unloosed loss, violence and deprivation on the major cities Democrats control.
“It is beyond sobering, but also true, that Chicago does indeed represent the future of Democrat-led cities, states and — worse — even the country,” Peek wrote for a column in The Hill. Both the city and the state are entirely run by Democrats; they occupy the mayor’s office, the governor’s mansion and have a majority in both houses of the legislature. By every normal measure, the city and the state are disasters — a reminder that liberal policies aimed at helping the downtrodden don’t work and indeed hurt most the people that Democrats profess to care about.”
Clarke agrees. But in Chicago, the deep blue metropolis of a deep blue state, it’s difficult to see the political advantage for Democrats.
“This is just a typical Democrat decision, leading convention-goers into the pit,” he said. “It’s either neglect or recklessness.”
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “2016 Republican National Convention” by Walt Disney Television. CC BY-ND 2.0.
