Not So Fast

I mobilized very quickly Sunday night to try and arrange airfare, hotels, rental cars for a last-minute trip to the DNC in Denver. Though I won't rule out the possibility of somehow ending up at Invesco Field on Thursday night, I'm holding off on the trip for now.

Why?

Because the main reason to travel out to Denver would be to "say I was there," and looking back, I've been fortunate enough to be able to say I was at a lot of the big moments of the '08 campaign already, and have had countless memorable experiences:

—Unity, NH
—A GOP Primary Debate
—The Oprah/Obama rallies
—The Iowa Caucuses

—Seeing Hillary in Indiana
—The Pennsylvania Primary
—Interviewing John Edwards
—Hearing Mike Huckabee play rock n' roll
—Meeting Dodd, Huckabee, Biden, McCain, Kucinich, Richardson, Romney, Gravel, Edwards, Duncan Hunter, Tancredo, Brownback, and Giuliani

I'm sure I could walk out of Denver with some good photos and stories, but the best stories from the election aren't always where everyone else is looking, and EVERYONE is staring straight at Denver this week.

Enjoy some good old Granite State political coverage the next few days!

"Backstage with Barack": Some Darn Good Fundraising

It's a pretty simple concept.

If you give $5 or more to the Obama campaign, your name is entered into a drawing to spend some time with Obama before he goes on stage to accept the Democratic nomination.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems very unlikely that a politician about to give the biggest speech of his life would enjoy being bothered by ten strangers and their guests. Just think what would happen if the campaign actually randomly selected the winners and ended up with a bunch of ex-Hillary supporters that didn't really love Obama but wanted to give him a few bucks anyway to win in November.

Not very good publicity there, right?


I can't say I'm at all surprised by the ten guests that will be with Obama in Denver (the list was released yesterday). Here are some good ones:

A teacher from a small Montana farming village.

An evangelical grandfather and ex-MIKE HUCKABEE supporter from a swing state.

A female college student from Alaska who is "interviewing native elders about their experiences with segregation" for summer break.

And Trinance, "a single mother and disabled veteran who served overseas for the Iraq War."

My apologies to the many thousands who donated money hoping to win and were instead overlooked as the Obama campaign hunted for some "lucky winners" with relevant and juicy stories.

...as the Obama campaign laughs all the way to the bank...

The Hype Machine

Blah, blah, blah.

Per the New York Post:

Take his decision to deliver his acceptance speech at Invesco Field at Mile High in Denver. It seems that the venue for the rest of the Democratic convention - the Pepsi Center (occupancy 21,000) - is just too small.

Obama says he wants to give the common folk more "access" to the process. Only a man with an Olympian's sense of entitlement to mass worship could describe such a choreographed descent upon a place called "Mile High" as an effort to bond with the common man. A demigod, it seems, is never so tall as when he stoops to bask in the adoration of the little people.

Seriously.

Barack, Say Yes Just Once

"No" to joint town halls with McCain. "No" to public financing. Now it's "no" to a town hall meeting at Fort Hood with John McCain.

Read it HERE.

Obama's free to do whatever he wants, and if he really does have a "previously scheduled commitment on the date proposed," than I understand why August 11th won't work for him, but check out the following from the NY Times article:

“I’m having extreme difficulty getting the Obama campaign to commit to this event, and we do not understand why,” said Ms. Picard, whose husband is deployed in Iraq. “We made it very clear to them that if they would commit to the event, we would work with them on dates.”

The organizers released details about the event in hopes that it would pressure the Obama campaign to agree to the event.

“This was a decision that was made with tremendous difficulty, to publicize it,” Ms. Picard said. “We were at a point where we had no other option. We got the impression that they could talk us to November.”

I'm starting to get the impression too that the Obama campaign turns down these offers time and time again only to scramble to schedule their own event on the date mentioned. 

How can Obama prove me (and a growing number of disappointed voters) wrong? Take McCain up on one of McCain's offers. 

Is John McCain really that much better in the town hall format, or is the Obama campaign simply going to script this election their way?

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."