Mile-high Obama? Invesco Field may be venue

Invesco Field at Mile High in July 2001, before it opened. (Denver Post file photo)

Barack Obama’s campaign is considering moving his nomination acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention from the Pepsi Center to Invesco Field at Mile High to allow tens of thousands to witness the historic moment, sources say.

The move would mark a major departure from tradition, but would be in keeping with the candidate’s desire to build a large grass-roots campaign focused on “change.”

Should the Illinois Senator give his Aug. 28 speech — which occurs on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech — at Invesco, the move would leave behind the multi-million-dollar broadcast studios and high-tech podium and stage to be constructed at the Pepsi Center.

“No decision has been made in regards to this,” wrote Matthew Chandler, the Colorado press secretary for the Obama campaign in an e-mail. A spokesperson at Obama’s Chicago headquarters declined to elaborate and Denver’s convention host committee declined to comment.

The move, mentioned early Thursday on www.demconwatchblog.com, would not be unprecedented. In 1960, the Democratic National Convention was held at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. But nominee John F. Kennedy delivered his acceptance speech next door at the Memorial Coliseum.

Invesco Field, home of the Denver Broncos, seats 76,125 and presumably several thousand more could fit on the field. The Pepsi Center holds less than 20,000 and is to be restricted to delegates, media, high-dollar donors and guests of the Democratic Party

Obama, who will become the first African American major party nominee, spoke in an interview with The Denver Post of a desire to include more people from the public at the convention. The interview took place before word of the venue change became known, but Obama spoke of his desire to reform how conventions are funded.

“One of the concerns we had from the beginning of this campaign is the tendency for special interests and lobbyists to dominate the political process,” Obama said.

“That’s why we don’t take (Political Action Committee) money. We don’t take money from federally registered lobbyists. We’ve instituted a system that now the (Democratic National Committee) doesn’t either. I think it’s important that we don’t have a situation in which access to the convention is subject to the highest bidder.

“So we’re looking at a range of options to make sure that ordinary people feel like they can participate.”

Obama declined to say whether he would help the city’s host committee make up its shortfall in fundraising. The committee missed its final deadline by $11 million, but mayor John Hickenlooper said progress had been made in the past couple weeks.

Obama said his campaign is “now talking to the mayor’s office in Denver, the host committee, the (Democratic National Convention Committee). I’m confident the kinks will get worked out and the convention will go off without a hitch.”

Obama said the high costs of the conventions are warranted, because they are “important markers in our national life,” but that he didn’t think conventions “should be dominated by $10,000-a-plate dinners.

“One of the things that we’re going to be interested in doing, for example, is find ways to use the Internet to help shape the platform, to make the process more transparent, invite more people to get involved,” Obama said. “Those are all going to be priorities in terms of how we organize this convention and how conventions are organized in the future.”

Meanwhile, the process of turning the Pepsi Center into a convention hall begins Monday, and hundreds of national and international media are coming Tuesday for a final media walk through to make decisions about how to outfit their press operations there.

Should the last night of the convention move to Invesco, it raises the question of how the media outfit their Pepsi Center operation.

Natalie Wyeth, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Convention Committee declined comment, saying, “We have nothing to announce.”

Bookmark/Search this post with: