There’s a story in the paper today about the city’s effort to land the GOP convention. Here’s how we’re trying to sway the site-selection committee members:
[I]n making their pitches to snare the Republican presidential convention, Dallas, Las Vegas, Cincinnati and others came bearing gifts. … The Dallas delegation, led by Mayor Mike Rawlings, former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau president Phillip Jones, gave party officials blue tote bags during their visit here last week. … Inside, beneath tissue paper with prints of the state flag, was a hat, polo shirt and notebook emblazoned with Dallas’ 2016 elephant logo. Also included, a small Neiman Marcus gift box of lotion and mints.
Come on! A tote bag with a gimme cap and some mints?! We’re talking about a convention that will have a $600 million economic impact on the city (note: need to fact check that number). Remember when the city sent iPhones to CEOs to try to get them to relocate their companies to Dallas? Has City Hall maxed out our Discover card?
Okay, okay. I get that the limit on gifts to site-selection committee members is $200. So send them a $149 iPod nano loaded with Dallas music (Erykah Badu, Kirk Franklin, Polyphonic, Toadies, St. Vincent, Norah Jones, Petty Theft). Or just send them a bag that costs $1 and fill it with 199 dollar bills and a note that says, “Let’s party.”
Anyway, very disappointed in our lack of out-of-the-box thinking here. However, I am not disappointed in Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who inadvertently came up with the city’s new marketing slogan. Forget “Big Things Happen Here.” In touting her hometown, Hutchison described Dallas thusly: “We are new and clean and vigorous.”
Yes! That’s a slogan I can get behind. We sound like a virginal Norwegian farm girl who is looking for a suitor. You know those “B G” letters around town, the ones inviting you to stand in for the “I” and have your photograph taken in front of this or that attraction? Replace them immediately. I want to see “V GOROUS” all around town. Please tell me we can make this happen. Dwaine Caraway, are you listening?
