Last Fall, I had dinner with the Mayor of Denver and told him he would soon confront a problem that regularly plagued mayors of political convention host cities.
People from his city would hear about the convention coming to town for over two years, but when it came time for the big event, Denverites-like Bostonians, Angelinos and scores of other host residents before them-would have little or no luck getting into the arena.
Senator Obama has solved the mayor’s dilemma, and done much more.
The presumptive Democratic nominee will formally accept the nomination not in a smaller arena, but in an NFL stadium in front of more than 75,000 people.
Nearly two-thirds of those watching the event live will have been invited because they live in Denver or the surrounding Rocky Mountain West and Southwest regions.
In previous presidential cycles, conventions and candidates have debated doing something different for the acceptance speech. John Kerry toyed with the idea of moving his acceptance speech to Hatch Shell Esplanade on the Charles River in Boston in 2004.
Al Gore contemplated giving his speech from the center of Los Angeles’s Staples Center in 2000 rather than the traditional podium. These ideas were shelved and viewers of the event saw what they were used to, in part because of the magnitude of the speech.
To be fair, the larger audience for the acceptance speech is not local. It is the millions of Americans who will watch-live on TV or again and again on YouTube-the closest thing to a State of the Union speech that a nominee can give.
As a result, the decision to shake it up on the only night during the campaign when your remarks will be carried live on every major network simultaneously is not without risk.
Especially when you consider the fact that the Democratic Party, federal security officials, television networks, and local planners have been developing plans for a different venue for over 18 months.
But the campaign team that showed remarkable vision and resilience during the primary and the highly competent convention planning team are up to that challenge. Still, you have to ask: why take the risk?
Small decisions in politics have big impacts. That impact only grows when you step from the political arena onto the governing stage. Senator Obama has made a seemingly small decision to speak from a much larger platform in Denver.
In doing so he has literally opened the doors so that tens of thousands can be part of something normally reserved for the political elite.
He has also decided to actually do something different in politics-even when the stakes are as high as they will be from now until November.
Americans are yearning for a new approach from their political leaders; perhaps we are seeing the first step.
Rod O’Connor was the CEO of the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston and the COO of the 2000 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. EDITOR’S NOTE: This online-only guest commentary has not been edited. Guest commentary submissions of up to 650 words may be sent to openforum@denverpost.com.
