Sen. Barack Obama will accept the Democratic presidential nomination at a 75,000-seat Denver football stadium, rejecting his party's convention hall because it is too small to accommodate his supporters along with the usual convention delegates and party insiders.Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean said yesterday that moving the speech to Invesco Field at Mile High, home of the NFL's Denver Broncos, from the Pepsi Center, which seats 19,000, would drive up costs and complicate security planning. But he said the extra aggravation would pay off with a dramatic Rocky Mountain tableau that reinforces Obama's grass-roots style and historic ascent.
But it is not unprecedented. John F. Kennedy delivered his acceptance speech before 80,000 people at Los Angeles Coliseum in 1960. Kennedy chose the outdoor arena to maximize the impact of his acceptance speech, with its call for voters to join him in blazing a "new frontier."
-- Washington Post
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