Did anyone call Jimmy Dimora with the good news about the 2016 Republican convention?

Is Jimmy Dimora rolling over in his cell today? Or, lying behind bars in a California prison, does he

secretly feel vindicated that the Republicans are coming to Cleveland for their 2016 convention?

If you’re excited the GOP chose us, there’s lots of credit to go around today. Ed FitzGerald deserves some (as Brent Larkin notes). So do Rob Portman and Frank Jackson. A bipartisan effort convinced the Republicans to hold their coronation in Cleveland.

No one, of course, has thanked Dimora, the former Democratic chair turned disgraced crook. Nor do I expect Tim Hagan, the hotheaded liberal Democrat who made the convention center his last big-spending project, to get much thanks from the pro-RNC crowd.

But the Republicans’ enormous convention wouldn’t be coming here without Dimora and Hagan’s controversial 2007 decision to raise the sales tax and build the convention center and Global Center. That big bet on the convention industry and visitor economy is the first step that made the RNC decision today possible.

Quicken Loans Arena will be the Republicans’ main convention hall, but the Cleveland Convention Center will be the RNC’s biggest supporting venue. More important is the cascade of development the project set off. No convention center means no hotel boom and no convention center hotel. Cleveland didn’t have as many hotel rooms as Dallas, but by 2016, it’ll have just enough.

Even the author of a very critical piece about the convention center hotel admitted as much today:

Well, fuck, now the subsidized Hilton hotel looks like a genius plan.
— Eric Sandy (@ericsandy) July 8, 2014

I’m remembering the argument that Chris Kennedy of MMPI, the convention center’s developer, made in a story I wrote five years ago.

“If you look at cities that have enjoyed urban rebirth, they are almost all associated with tourism and hospitality,” Kennedy said then. “Unless you introduce that element back into Cleveland, I don't believe any other strategy can be successful. Additionally, this strategy can turn a city around all by itself.”

Exciting, if true. And we’ll see. Cleveland is all-in with the visitor economy now.

Today’s news isn’t going to stop the debate about that, nor should it. One of the great divides of Cleveland politics is about projects like this -- big spending on attracting visitors, and on downtown in general.

The RNC is a lot like Dimora and Hagan’s gamble on the convention center, or FitzGerald’s double-down on a county-owned convention hotel. Cleveland will spend $55 million to $68 million to prepare for the convention, to attract visitor spending that can only be estimated, before or after -- $404 million? or $170 million? or even just $15 million?

The hype is beginning. Now let's start putting in perspective. Economic numbers are overblown and conv don't bring long-term eco impact.
— mark naymik (@marknaymik) July 8, 2014

Psst ... Cities. Mega-events don't pay ... New Report via @sandymaxey - http://t.co/39BJQ52vsZ … … … cc @Richard_Florida
— Richard Florida (@Richard_Florida) July 8, 2014

The boosters and skeptics, the optimists and pessimists, will fight on, just like the Republicans and Democrats will. Neither will be right all the time.

But sometimes events move the debate. Cleveland’s improbable return to the national political convention circuit is a big win for the optimists’ strategy.

MMPI's Chris Kennedy nears U.S. Senate run in Illinois -- will Med Mart be an issue?

Chris Kennedy, president of MMPI, is likely to announce a run for the U.S. Senate from Illinois next week -- and Cleveland's Medical Mart deal may become an issue in the race.

Kennedy's possible opponents are quietly questioning MMPI's deal with Cleveland, Greg Hinz writes on his Crain's Chicago Business blog. What they want to know about it isn't clear, though Hinz's post questions Kennedy and MMPI vice-president Mark Falanga about the public's financing of the Medical Mart.

"I almost pulled the plug on it a couple of times," Kennedy tells Hinz, explaining that it took four years of difficult negotiations to strike the deal.

Kennedy, one of Robert F. Kennedy's sons, may join the 2010 race for President Obama's former Senate seat, now held by the embarrassing Roland Burris.

Hagan blasts PD for Kennedy question, "pimp" comment

Tim Hagan blasted the Plain Dealer again at today's county commission meeting. Scroll down (way down) to see the cleveland.com video.

Hagan says the paper has "questioned my integrity" and resorted to personal attacks. "The press is out of control, for the purpose of seeking readership while the paper is in decline," he charged.

Hagan's mad -- understandably -- that editorial writer Chris Evans, commenting on the Medical Mart project on WCPN last Thursday, called Hagan a "pimp leading the dance." Evans has apologized. (Roldo Bartimole, a Hagan critic for decades, cheers the "pimp" line here.)

Hagan's also upset that the PD dared to ask a really obvious and important question: how has Tim Hagan's close relationship with the Kennedy family affected the negotiations with Med Mart developer MMPI and its president, Chris Kennedy?

This is the article that set Hagan off. The PD says one reason it threatened a lawsuit to get the county to reveal its latest agreement with MMPI is that it's "concerned" about the Hagan-Chris Kennedy relationship.

At a meeting a year ago, when an earlier county-MMPI agreement was unveiled, even Jimmy Dimora mentioned Hagan's awkward ties.

“Commissioner Hagan especially, because of his relationship with the Kennedy family, was in a very difficult position,” Dimora said then. "And he stood up for our community and for making sure we got a good deal. Even though [with] friendship, sometimes you try to be lax and easier with your friends, more understanding, he stood the line, which helped make sure that MMPI knew that we were serious and that we wanted to do the right thing for the taxpayers."

That's Hagan's dilemma, his conflict of interest, right there. Of course the PD should ask about it.

I did too, last spring. "The assumption is that I would be compromised in those discussions," Hagan said then. "I don’t want to give that impression. I certainly know people in this town as well or better that we’ve negotiated with." (Today at the meeting, Hagan said Sam Miller and the Ratners of Forest City have given him $75,000 over the years, which didn't keep him from rejecting their Med Mart site.)

"I know Chris Kennedy," Hagan told me last year. "I went to his mother’s 80th birthday party. They’ve been friends of mine for almost 40 years. But the Kennedys no longer own Merchandise Mart, and he’s the president of the company. I don’t think that precludes my discussions with him.

"I think the public scrutiny and transparency of the deal put before the public is proof that I’ve tried to operate in the best interests of community first and foremost."

Which is why the PD wants to see the new agreement!

I think the Hagan-Kennedy relationship has potential risks and potential rewards. Of course it's harder to be a tough negotiator when a friend is across the table. But people who like the Medical Mart could flip the argument and claim: if it weren't for Hagan's valuable personal relationship, the deal would have never gotten done! Update, Sunday: Chris Kennedy says exactly that in a Plain Dealer story: "Who's got the juice in that town? ... We would not invest there if it weren't for Tim Hagan."

One more bit of news: Toward the end of the video, Hagan says he's not running for reelection in 2012.

Update, Friday a.m.: Here's the PD story about Hagan's complaints, with responses from editor Susan Goldberg.