Next summer’s GOP Convention here in Tampa conjures up, by now, familiar themes and plot lines.
Will this be where Mitt Romney unites a Republican Party that will never warm up to him? Will demonstrators, police and the ACLU be able to play nice? Will Tampa Bay stay hurricane free yet again?
Now add this: Just 10 months before the GOP Convention there is a contract dispute–between the convention organizers and local hotels. Not about signing one–but re-signing one.
The organizers, actually the Committee on Arrangements, wants to throw out the one agreed to and signed last year and start over. The rationale? There are now different personnel on board, and they’ve determined that they can do better than the room rates locked in last year. It affects about 100 hotels in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, who have now been asked–actually told–to lower previously agreed upon rates.
This is how the party of the marketplace operates? So much for Adam Smith and the invisible hand. This heavy-handed, demand-economy approach isn’t the self-regulation dynamic we revere. How arrogant.
The Republican Party signs a contract, fires Michael Steele and some cronies, and wants to start over with local hotels less than a year out. This never happened with four Super Bowls, and the NFL knows a thing or two about negotiations and leverage. But they also respect signed contracts. How old school.
The hoteliers, understandably, are pretty steamed. This market is not known for price-gouging.
Who knows, maybe they’ll be a few additional demonstrators that last week of August.