For those who missed the news, Obama has decided to take the convention on the road for the final night. That is the night he will make his acceptance speech. Rather than staying inside the arena they will be using all week with a capacity of 21,000 they have decided to move the convention to the new Mile High Stadium, home of the Denver Broncos football team. The opportunity to invite more than 50,000 additional people to be a part of history is an amazingly good idea. The Party will be able to include tens of thousands who would otherwise have been home watching on TV on this historic night. And an historic night this will be because on this night not only will be the first time a person of color will be nominated for President of the United States by one of the major parties, but it will also be the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. It has all of the ingredients required to send Obama into the Fall campaign with a big convention bump in the polls.
What will also happen is something we all had an opportunity to see in right here in Rogers Park in 2004. For those who only follow Obama they probably don’t know this, but those who follow politics know that David Axelrod (the current Obama media genius) was also the media genius who was with Obama in his 2004 United States Senate campaign. Some of you will remember that on a Saturday long before anyone thought Obama had a chance to win the Senate race Barack came to the Heartland Café. On a much smaller scale the place was packed. People had to be turned away because of safety and fire concerns. Others braved the cold and stood out in the street only half way able to hear after a speaker was set outside the door so that everyone who wanted to be a part of this event could be.
Many people don’t know that part of the reason for that event was to get footage for Barack’s commercials. The footage captured was a large part of the original video the campaign put out when Barack announced he was running for President. I believe we can expect that what will come from the Mile High stadium event is some of the most amazing commercials we will ever see. They will be full of enthusiasm and hope, a rainbow of people from all walks of life, energy that even long after the event you can still feel watching the video. It will be electric when 75,000 people are chanting O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA! This is a great way to showcase Obama with his youthful energy versus McCain’s tired old words and tired old ways when he stands in a Minnesota convention hall dragging on in his monotone voice talking about how he isn’t running for Bush’s third term.
This will be a once in a lifetime event. Denver anyone?
