LIVE from Charlotte: DNCC officials hold opening press conference

Wel­come back to our con­tin­u­ing cov­er­age of the 2012 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion in Char­lotte, North Car­oli­na. I’m at Room 208 in the Char­lotte Con­ven­tion Cen­ter, await­ing the begin­ning of the Con­ven­tion’s Open­ing Press Con­fer­ence, where DNCC CEO Steve Ker­ri­g­an, Char­lotte May­or Antho­ny Foxx, and oth­er DNCC offi­cials are wel­com­ing mem­bers of the press corps to the forty-sixth qua­dren­ni­al gath­er­ing of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.

The weath­er is very nice out­side right now, although we’ve been warned that a few thun­der­show­ers might be rolling through lat­er this after­noon, which could momen­tar­i­ly put a damper on Car­oli­naFest, the big Labor Day cel­e­bra­tion the DNCC is hold­ing today for del­e­gates and res­i­dents of Charlotte.

Accord­ing­ly, there are quite a few pavil­ions and tent­ed areas set up in Uptown to pro­tect atten­dees from the elements.

The press con­fer­ence is just get­ting start­ed. I’m going to update this post as we go along, so it’s going to grow a bit longer every few minutes.

First up was CEO Steve Kerrigan.

He reit­er­at­ed how delight­ed Char­lotte is to host the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion, and remind­ed the media that he and his team have been work­ing for a very long time to get ready, to ensure that every­thing goes smoothly.

Ker­ri­g­an not­ed that mem­bers of the pub­lic are able to par­tic­i­pate in many aspects of the con­ven­tion, including:

• Car­oli­naFest (as detailed above);
• Cau­cus meet­ings at the Char­lotte Con­ven­tion Center;
• The final day of the Con­ven­tion at Pan­ther Sta­di­um (free com­mu­ni­ty cre­den­tial required for access).

May­or Foxx, the host may­or, spoke next.

“Through­out the con­ven­tion week, the world will have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to expe­ri­ence North Car­oli­na,” Foxx said. “Char­lotte res­i­dents are ready to put their best foot for­ward… We like to say hel­lo to you when you’re walk­ing down the street.”

Foxx described the inter­est in the fourth day of the con­ven­tion  as “over­whelm­ing”, not­ing that there were long lines to acquire com­mu­ni­ty credentials.

DNCC Chair Anto­nio Vil­laraigosa (who serves as May­or of Los Ange­les) said he is very much look­ing for­ward to gavel­ing the con­ven­tion to order tomor­row afternoon.

“After what we saw in Tam­pa, I’m proud to say this will be a con­ven­tion that will be a lit­tle dif­fer­ent,” Vil­laraigosa said.

“We’re going to engage every­body who’s a part of this effort. In Char­lotte, we’re going to present our vision, and we’re going to affirm our val­ues… We’re going to get down to busi­ness and get our coun­try mov­ing forward.”

After speak­ing in Eng­lish, Vil­laraigosa deliv­ered most of his remarks in Span­ish for the ben­e­fit of Span­ish-speak­ing Americans.

DNC Sec­re­tary Alice Ger­mond fol­lowed him to pro­vide the press with some num­bers about the convention.

“I have par­tic­i­pat­ed in ten pres­i­den­tial con­ven­tions,” Ger­mond said. “Because of that, I can say first­hand, this tru­ly the most diverse, the most open, the most trans­par­ent… the most excit­ing con­ven­tion [in our par­ty’s history].”

Some vital sta­tis­tics pro­vid­ed by DNC Sec­re­tary Alice Germond:

• There are 5,559 delegates
• There are 407 alternates
• Fifty per­cent (half) of all del­e­gates are women
• Twen­ty-sev­en per­cent of all del­e­gates are black
• Record num­ber of youth — six hun­dred and forty four youth delegates
• Old­est del­e­gate is Elzena John­son of Ter­ry, Mis­sis­sip­pi — born in 1914
• Youngest del­e­gate is Samuel Ray of Iowa — born in 1994
• Over four thou­sand watch par­ties have been sched­uled by local Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty organizations

DNCC offi­cials end­ed the press con­fer­ence by tak­ing questions.

One reporter asked about the strate­gic impor­tance of pick­ing Char­lotte, North Car­oli­na as the host city of the con­ven­tion. May­or Foxx observed that North Car­oli­na is a bat­tle­ground state, as is Vir­ginia, its next door neighbor.

But he said that a major rea­son Char­lotte was picked was out of recog­ni­tion of its growth and devel­op­ment. The city has become a major finan­cial cen­ter (it is the head­quar­ters of Bank of Amer­i­ca, and has even been dubbed “Wall Street South”). From 2000 to 2010, Char­lot­te’s pop­u­la­tion increased by near­ly 200,000 peo­ple… and that’s not even count­ing the growth in Char­lot­te’s suburbs.

Reporters also asked when a spe­cif­ic sched­ule of speak­ers would be made avail­able (con­ven­tion offi­cials promised that it was com­ing) and how many His­pan­ic del­e­gates will be in atten­dance (Sec­re­tary Ger­mond plans to release final num­bers soon).

One reporter also asked if Barack Oba­ma’s speech on Thurs­day at Pan­ther Sta­di­um was con­tin­gent on the weath­er. Ker­ri­g­an said that Oba­ma will accept the nom­i­na­tion there “rain or shine”, though he hint­ed there is a worst-case con­tin­gency plan in case of very bad weather.

Con­ven­tion offi­cials proud­ly empha­sized that the 2012 DNC will be very dif­fer­ent than the Repub­li­can gath­er­ing in Tam­pa. There are near­ly three times as many del­e­gates par­tic­i­pat­ing in the DNC as the RNC, and this DNC — the most open in his­to­ry, they say — is much more acces­si­ble to the pub­lic than the RNC was.

We’ve now gone for about forty-five min­utes, and we’re wrap­ping up. I’ll sign off for now, and post again very soon.