Baptists bring city to its knees.

• Author: Speizer, Irwin
• Position: Competing for the 2008 GOP convention - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

Charlotte lawyer Frank Whitney spent a half hour driving two blocks to his law office one morning in June, joining hundreds of commuters stuck in a traffic jam as 50,000 Baptist conventioneers clogged the streets of downtown Charlotte. But if his fellow commuters were cursing the blessed, Whitney likely was saying a prayer: Please, Lord, don't let the Republican National Committee hear about this.

Whitney, a longtime GOP activist, has been trying to land a national convention for Charlotte since 1997. A former federal prosecutor now with Kilpatrick Stockton LLP, he led a committee that worked with the city in bidding for the 2000 conventions. Charlotte got cut early. He figures Texas has the 2004 Republican convention locked up, thanks to Dubya. But competition should be wide open in 2008. Whitney would tolerate even the Democrats but figures that, since their conventions tend to be larger, Charlotte won't get one. Either way, the last thing Whitney wants is for word to get back to party bosses that Charlotte can't manage a proper, pious group such as the National Baptist Convention USA.

By the second day of the Baptist pilgrimage, Charlotte had tamed traffic by calling in off-duty cops, opening lanes that had been closed for construction and offering city buses as free shuttles. That cost $10,000 to...