ATLANTA — Sometime after the Democrats debate Tuesday night in Ohio, we can expect to learn the location of the next debate here in Georgia. It will take place Nov. 20, somewhere in metro Atlanta.
And the city can expect more than a two or three-hour TV show on MSNBC.
Democrats hope that having 10 or more presidential hopefuls in town will quicken the pulses of Democratic activists and maybe – just maybe – people who have never voted before.
Last month, Texas Southern University in Houston hosted 10 Democratic hopefuls – plus eye-opening crowds of would-be spectators, mere observers, party activists and political thrill-seekers.
"The debate might have been the center attraction. But there might have been a half a dozen sideshows, with each candidate and their organizations, organizing press conferences and rallies and conversations," said Dr. Bob Stein, a Rice University political scientist who attended the Houston event.
What struck him, he says, were the legions of young people clamoring to get a front seat to political theater.
"It mobilized and energized a lot of young people. Not just students, but people who you might call millennials – people under 35, under 45," Stein told 11Alive.
Democrats selecting a debate site in Atlanta could – as they did in Houston – choose a historically black college to host the event. Or they could pivot to Atlanta’s suburbs.
"Georgia is going to be a battleground," said former state Sen. Curt Thompson (D-Norcross), now running for Gwinnett County commission chairman. "And the best way to keep that energy up for it to be a battleground is to have it in those northern suburbs, and have it here in Gwinnett."
Thompson would like to see the Democrats pick Gwinnett’s Infinite Energy Arena – which is surrounded by suburbs that flipped from Republican to Democrat in the last election.
If that happened, "I would be figuring out how to get a ticket. Trust me, that would be my first call," Thompson said. "Me and everybody else."
There’s also a new performing arts center in Sandy Springs, in north Fulton County, that could host the Democratic debate next month. A spokeswoman for Sandy Springs Mayor Rusty Paul wrote in an email Paul is "not able to speculate on where an event will locate."
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