The St. Louis effort to host the Democratic National Convention in 2012 is in full swing. Party leaders are here right now. Local officials are touting the glories of St. Louis. Chuck Berry lives here. We're located in a swing state. Chuck Berry lives here.

All of this enthusiasm is well and good, but this effort is like an election campaign. Enthusiasm can only take you so far. To win, you have to go negative.

So let's take a look at the three cities we're competing against.

Cleveland.

Two words: LeBron James. Does the Democratic Party really want to embrace a city that just got dumped by a basketball player? He's from there, and he came to the conclusion that you can't win in Cleveland. That's a heck of an image to project in 2012.

"The Democratic convention, live from Loserville!"

I don't mean to kick a place when it's down. Scratch that. That is exactly what I mean to do. The sad fact is that everybody associates Cleveland with "LeBron James: The Decision."

Maybe that's better than being thought of as "The Mistake on the Lake." Or hey, remember when the Cuyahoga River caught fire? Randy Newman immortalized that with his song, "Burn On." That could be the theme song of the convention.

I'll be honest. I like Cleveland. It's the sort of down-on-its-luck place that appeals to me.

But when the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote that a convention in that city would be a "symbolic statement about the need to boost the economies of older manufacturing cites that are hard hit by the recession and foreclosures," I thought, that's the problem. It's a dreary message to send.

LeBron James, shuttered factories and foreclosures.

On the plus side, Cleveland has the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. You know whose picture you see when you step inside? Chuck Berry's.

Charlotte.

Oh yes, the headquarters of Bank of America. Let's see, how much did the bank get in the federal bailout? About $45 billion, and a guarantee of another $128 billion.

Shortly after the collapse, the bank's chieftain, Ken Lewis, retired. News accounts put his retirement package at $135 million. By the way, he collected about $150 million in cash and stock in the years leading up to the collapse.

Maybe he can address the convention. That's a great message to send to the electorate.

"Hello, suckers. We're meeting in the lobby of the Bank Too Big to Fail. Nice and opulent, isn't it?"

Speaking of Lewis, he engineered Bank of America's acquisition of Countrywide Financial, the giant mortgage company.

I always forget if that was before or after the feds accused the company's executives of securities fraud. But hey, the timing doesn't really matter. It's more of the word association thing. Charlotte, Countrywide Financial, securities fraud.

Minneapolis.

Frankly, this city has a lot going for it. Chuck Berry doesn't live there, but Garrison Keillor does. Sort of, anyway. He also has a place in New York.

The real problem with Minneapolis — and this ought to be a deal-killer — is Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

He is one of the contenders for the Republican presidential nomination. Think how awkward it would be to hold a convention in the home state of your opponent. For one thing, he'd be on television every night. This is supposed to be your time in the spotlight, not his!

And the better Minneapolis looks, the better it is for Pawlenty. People will figure he must be doing something right.

Furthermore, the Democrats would be holding a convention in a state they couldn't win in November. That's wasting a convention.

So what about St. Louis? How do we stack up against our opponents?

LeBron James isn't going to walk out on us. That's because we don't have an NBA team. Not anymore, anyway. We didn't just lose one guy. Our whole team walked. But that was so long ago, nobody remembers.

We don't have the banking business Charlotte has. In fact, Charlotte bought one of our biggest banks in 1996 when Andy Craig sold Boatmen's Bank to NationsBank, which later became Bank of America.

Actually, with the sale of the brewery, we don't have much industry headquartered here. We're pretty much down to frozen custard.

Furthermore, our governor is a Democrat. No Minnesota problem.

And, of course, Chuck Berry lives here.