I had a nice dinner at ConFrancisco with a charming family from Phoenix, Arizona who admitted they were personae non grata in local fandom because of their habit of supporting any and all other cities' bids against Phoenix. I had never heard of such a thing! They told me that Phoenix was extremely hot and dry and generally monstrous over Labor Day weekend and the very last thing they wanted was to be there or to subject their friends to it. (They seemed pleased to be in San Francisco, with it's damp, nippy air.) I have to admit I might agree with them if Baltimore were bidding in January or February_ Baltimore with a few inches of snow resembles nothing more than a city in siege with constant local news coverage, and stores being stripped of milk, eggs, bread, toilet paper and junk food. (I've always had visions of people sitting around eating junk food and bread pudding, pausing from the local news coverage to spend some quality time in the head.) But we are bidding for the Worldcon during one of the loveliest times of the year (Hey, my birthday will fall during the Worldcon, and what could be finer than my birthday other than, possibly, yours?) and perhaps you'd consider coming here rather than staying home, exhausted from having devoted your whole summer to preparing for a Worldcon.
For example, say you live in Atlanta. We can pretty much guarantee that whatever temperature it is at home, it will be cooler here. (Not by much, but hey, even a few degrees help, right?) To get here you can take a pleasant two-day drive though the mountains. Or you can take a train, perhaps humming Chattanooga Choo-Choo. ("Read a magazine, and then you're in Baltimore.") You'll be closer to lots of things in the Northeast, so you can swim in the ocean (or the largest bay in North America), or see the Air and Space Museum, or even go to Gettysburg and re-enact your own version of Pickett's Charge. And you'll get to go to DragonCon, too, instead of having it submerged for a year in Worldcon. You can visit Harbor Place and know that without Underground Atlanta to show it the way, it might not exist.
Live in Boston? Plenty of history here, too. (We even had our own version of the Boston Tea Party, a few years after yours, on the Eastern Shore.) We don't have swan boats, but we do have paddle boats on our river. And we know you recognize our years of experience running large cons like Balticon (for years the largest SF con anywhere) and Disclave. You respect our chairperson so much you gave her a major role running your last Worldcon! (I am speaking, of course, of the incomparable Peggy Rae Pavlat.) And you can compare the NESFA clubhouse with the BSFS clubhouse, maybe compare notes at Hausner's Restaurant.
I've been to Niagara Falls in both winter and summer, and if I lived there, I think I'd want to get away from the hoards of mundane tourists who take over every summer. The Falls are, of course, a World Famous Tourist Attraction, with all that entails, whereas Baltimore is only really famous in this country. And wouldn't a nice crab cake be a change from a white-hot or a beef on weck?
Of course, we understand that you love your city and want to show it off to the fannish world. I've lived in Baltimore since 1978, and have come to think of it as my city, a city that can embrace the visions of both Barry Levinson (Diner, Tin Men, Avalon, Homicide) and John Waters (Pink Flamingos, Serial Mom). So we'll understand if you want to vote for your city first. What we're asking is that you then vote for Baltimore second. After all, this is a preferential ballot, and isn't Baltimore a better choice than "None of the Above?" I know you have preferences, so vote us ahead of "No Preference" (which would only let those SMOFs in the WSFS Business Meeting decided things, anyway). You paid for your ballot_don't just mark off your city without ranking the other choices. Remember, here in Baltimore, we're okay with being the Second City (all those years of living near Washington, you know). And fans in other cities: we really would like you to vote for us first.