I was watching WCCO-TV's 5pm news moments ago, when political reporter Pat Kessler seemed to report that the Democrats were about to bring their convention to the Twin Cities, but evidently got pre-empted by the RNC.
Kessler said that the Democrats were planning to announce their convention site on Friday. The Twin Cities were apparently the lead choice. Apparently, Minnesota Democrats were on the phone this morning with Howard Dean to get the party to make up its mind. I can only suspect based on this that the Minnesota DFLers had word that the RNC was about to announce, maybe earlier than planned.
Also, Kessler did not completely rule out the Twin Cities hosting the Democrats. He said it was off the table for now. Kessler is a pretty in-touch political reporter, one of the best I've seen in the upper midwest, so I suspect he's got his information straight.
If I heard this reporting right, and the Dems were just about set to go to Minnesota before being surprised by the Republicans (the decisions weren't supposed to happen until AFTER the elections, after all), does this raise the possibility that the Dems would change their rules and announce they're coming to Minnesota anyway? Especially if there's anough sentiment within the party to go somewhere other than NYC and Denver's bid isn't good enough? After all, it was Dean who threw out tradition and scheduled the DNC convention in late August, when traditionally the party out of power scheduled their's no later than early August. Why not say, "to heck with it, we're coming as well."
Update:
Here's a shocker: an AP story that falls all over itself trying to show the unstoppable push that Minnesota is making towards the GOP and becoming a red state (despite actual, you know, facts that contradict those claims).
http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_270181448.html