Mixing it Up, Again

The L.A. Times and DemConWatch are reporting that the Obama campaign will move Barack's nomination acceptance speech from Denver's Pepsi Center to Invesco Field. In terms that everyone will understand: they're taking the show from the basketball arena to the football stadium.


The New York Magazine's Sam Anderson presented (in a brilliant piece a few weeks back) three routes Obama could take for delivering his DNC speech this year:

1) To give a highly rhetorical and typical "brilliant" Obama speech.

2) To break the mold of the 'Great Obama Speech.' Says Anderson, "His greatest speech, in this situation, might actually be a bad one."

3) Anderson's third (and favorite) option was for Obama to "fundamentally reimagine the occasion, as he did with the race speech, and blow the roof off the building."

If Obama does decide to take his speech to a outdoor crowd nearing 100,000, the spectacle of the occasion could do a lot of the talking for Obama. Without saying a word, Obama would already have redefined the notion of the accepting the nomination.


[EDIT 7/7] The Obama campaign has confirmed Obama's speech will be held at Invesco Stadium. As reported by CNN: "Convention organizers portrayed the move as a reflection of Obama's success at encouraging people to vote for the first time."

I don't buy it—nobody was demanding Obama move to a larger venue for his speech. The Obama campaign should realize that voters demand more important things than to see their candidate at large rallies.

[EDIT #2] The location change is now being used as a fundraising opportunity.


To continue my above commentary, "The Obama campaign should realize that voters demand more important things than to PAY for the opportunity to see their candidate at large rallies."