Obama to Accept Nomination at Invesco Field at Mile High

Give me your starstruck, your clueless, your huddled masses yearning to get a glimpse of Barack Obama...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Barack Obama will accept the Democratic presidential nomination at Invesco Field at Mile High, a 76,000-seat stadium home to the Denver Broncos, the Democratic National Committee announced Monday.

...The decision to move Obama's acceptance speech to the giant football stadium was expected to boost fundraising, convention organizer Jenny Backus said.

"Lots of conventions have had no connection to their host cities, but this one is really going to take advantage of being in a state that's going to be an important general election battleground," Backus said. "And what better way to kick off the fall campaign and get thousands of supporters and grass roots organizers all in one place to get fired up."

...The Obama campaign made its own announcement about the new speech venue in a fundraising e-mail to supporters Monday.

"We're going to kick off the general election with an event that opens up the political process the same way we've opened it up throughout this campaign. Barack has made it clear that this is your convention, not his," campaign manager David Plouffe wrote.

The campaign will choose 10 people who contribute at least $5 to the campaign between now and July 31 to fly to the convention and meet Obama backstage before the speech, Plouffe added.

Obama is known for drawing huge crowds to many of his speeches. In May, a record 75,000 jammed into a riverside park in Portland, Ore., to hear him speak shortly before that state's primary.

Obama is scheduled to deliver his acceptance speech on Thursday, Aug. 28, the fourth and final night of the convention. It coincides with the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963.

For a small donation, win a trip to Denver and meet Obama backstage before his speech?

A backstage pass.

It is undeniable that Obama is being packaged as a rock star.

The Democrats will fill the stadium with tens of thousands of frenzied worshippers. I'm sure Lefty performers (that's just about the entire entertainment community) will be on hand to help fill the seats and entertain the crowd as they await the Chosen One.

It will be an event everyone will want to witness, in person or watching from home on TV.

Will the swell of excitement convince the swing voters to swing to the far Left and join Obama and his tens of thousands of followers?

I think it depends on whether those voters use reason or emotion to choose a candidate.

I also think that the Dems are counting on emotion.

Assuming the Republicans have no plans to utilize a football stadium, the Dems will be able to say that even the Republican National Convention is caught in the past. The podium and the balloons and the confetti are so last convention.

A wild stadium gathering could have some creepy elements. It could be reminiscent of those Hitler rallies, lemmings swept up by what they perceive to be a charismatic savior.