s Dorothy said after visiting Oz, ''There's no place like home.'' So, why not bring a national political convention home to the Hub?
Even with the Big Dig, it is easier to travel around Boston than it is to get around Los Angeles. Delegates to the 2000 Democratic National Convention and the media covering it were basically trapped in a city they couldn't traverse.
Public transportation is obviously not much of a priority in a city drowning in Lexuses and Land Rovers. The query destined to raise the blankest of stares from any police officer, hotel concierge, or that rarest of Los Angeles creatures - pedestrian - was this: What bus gets me to the Staples Center?
If you drove a rental car or paid $30 plus tip for a taxi, it took 35 minutes, minimum, to get from your hotel to the convention hall. For those who tried using the complimentary shuttle bus service, it is hard to be complimentary. That transportation option yielded a most painful crawl through some less-than-charming urban sprawl.
Indeed, getting from here to there and back was such a project that making any extra stops along the way presented a major challenge, even to the most dedicated consumer.
If shopkeepers are disappointed in the level of their convention week sales, as reported in last Saturday's Los Angeles Times, it's not surprising. To be blunt, I've found ways to run up a bigger American Express bill in Des Moines simply because it is easier to walk to a store.
Los Angeles is so used to celebrities that a national political convention merits barely a yawn.
That was the collective message throughout the week from cabdrivers and desk clerks. And while the puppy dog eagerness to please that spilled out of Philadelphia during the Republican National Convention is not necessarily a convention city requirement, it is nice to feel a little wanted, not to mention welcome.
To be honest, as a host city, Boston would probably fall somewhere between Philly-pumped and LA-blase.
Last week Mayor Thomas Menino spent some time promoting the city to the Democratic National Committee, distributing buttons that proclaimed, ''We'll do more in 2004.''
The Hub was one of three finalists for the Democratic convention in 2000, ultimately losing. ''The legacy of the losing bid from 2000 was that the DNC was saying Boston had the capability and the talent and the wherewithal to run the convention,'' says Patrick B. Moscaritolo, the head of the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Logistically, Boston can make a national convention work. During this summer's Tall Ships extravaganza, close to 8 million people visited the city over an 11-day period. Using public transportation and their own two feet, they did what was virtually impossible to do in Los Angeles: They shopped, walked, and ate around the city with minimum effort and expense. And don't forget (Fenway residents certainly won't) that every time the Red Sox play a home game, 32,000 people descend upon a very small neighborhood and then stream out.
It can be a mess, but it's still not as big a mess as the daily deluge of traffic on Wilshire Boulevard between Santa Monica and the Beverly Hilton, where the Massachusetts delegation stayed.
Of course, political conventions are about politics, not just logistics. Decision makers in both parties are ever tempted by California's delegate count.
However, holding a party's national convention in the Golden State does not guarantee winning it in November (Kennedy in '60, Goldwater in '64, Mondale in '84, and Dole in '96 didn't). And Los Angeles had other negatives for Al Gore and the Democrats. Tinseltown makes you think of Bill Clinton and Barbra Streisand except when it makes you think of Gore raising money at a Buddhist temple and then denying it.
In the end, Philadelphia was a better stage set for the Republicans and their message of compassionate conservatism than Los Angeles was for the Democrats and their rediscovered populism. After all, Jimmy Smits got into the Staples Center in LA, not the young security guard patrolling the media workspace, who said he wished he could have heard some of the speeches in person, not just watched them on television monitors.
A security guard on the same beat in Boston might not have made it to the convention floor, either. But he might have a better shot because he probably would be related to someone running the show. This is a city you can walk around with history you can feel and touch. And most important, it is a city with political connections you should never underestimate.
Joan Vennochi is a Globe columnist.
