Anticipating Wild Card Events in Planning for the 2008 Denver Democratic National Convention

As everyone knows, Metro Denver is preparing to host the Democratic National Convention (http://www.demconvention.com/) from August 25 to 28 2008. Back in July 2007 I blogged about the opportunities and risks for Metro Denver of hosting this event (http://aviewoftherockies.blogspot.com/2007/07/con.html).

Since my blog entry back then, as the campaign season has evolved, several ideas have come into clearer focus for me. The convention will be a historic and exciting event and, for the reasons discussed below, is likely to attract more than a normal convention's share of global attention. With the certainty that the Democrats will nominate either the first female or first African American major party candidate for President of the United States, the campaign season is shaping up to have a landmark, historic atmosphere. Voter turnout in Democratic primaries and caucuses has been tremendously high.

The competition between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the nomination is intense and is very likely to be closely fought until late into the primary season. There is a strong chance that neither candidate will have enough pledged delegates from primary and caucus results to obtain a majority of total delegates and decide the nomination. This means that votes from super delegates, party officials and grandees who are not chosen by the primary voters, would be required for either candidate to achieve a majority of total delegates and secure the nomination. This could lead to a tense and acrimonious convention. There is even the remote possibility of a brokered convention where neither candidate has enough support to clinch the nomination in the first round of voting. These types of scenarios would drive interest in the convention even higher and could lead thousands more people to descend on Denver than are currently being planned for.

Already there are large contingents of anarchists, antiglobalization advocates and other similar groups with names like "Recreate 68" and "Unconventional Action" who are planning to stage protests, demonstrations and disruptions in Denver. See for example this article in Westword (http://www.westword.com/2008-01-24/news/anarchists-stalk-democratic-convention).

Given the very high profile nature of this convention and the likely accompanying street level theatrics surrounding the event, the stakes and risks are unbelievably high and growing for Metro Denver. The region has to "thread the needle" by staging a safe, secure and exciting convention that allows the Democratic Nominee to shine and that showcases Metro Denver to the world in positive light while at the same time making sure that security enforcement and police action are not too heavy-handed and do not trample legitimate free speech. This excellent blog entry from Colorado Confidential (http://coloradoconfidential.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=05CFFC53FD194861C44651A13BFC01FC?diaryId=3338) discusses the approaches taken by Boston and New York for the 2004 Republican and Democratic National Conventions. Denver clearly has less historical experience than New York or Boston in hosting these types of high profile events.

I understand that the City of Denver is reaching out to near-by police jurisdictions for help providing extra police officers during the convention. (http://cbs4denver.com/local/police.denver.convention.2.560924.html). Securing extra police is a great first step. But the city needs to make sure that it adequately forecasts all possible risks and contingencies by engaging top level law enforcement officials, intelligence agencies, security experts and risk planners. In addition to high probability scenarios, officials need to brainstorm possible wild cards which can be defined as "low probability high-impact events which happen quickly" (See Out of the Blue How to Anticipate Big Future Surprises by John L Peterson, p. 4). Examples of possible wild cards include acts of nature, civil unrest, infrastructure sabotage or terrorist attacks. By their very nature, wild cards are extremely difficult to anticipate and plan for.

Planning miscalculations, lack of contingency options or failures to respond with nimbleness to rapidly evolving events during the convention could have catastrophic consequences for the perception of Denver by people around the world. This convention is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Denver Metro Area and planners have to ensure that it has a positive impact on the global perception of the region.