Safeco Acceptance Speech

Democratic Party nominee Senator Barack Obama plans an unusual departure from convention orthodoxy when he accepts his party's presidential nomination in a 76,000-seat stadium rather than the 15,000-seat convention hall in August.

The nomination will be August 28--the 45th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream Speech--and the setting should be a roaring, adoring crowd, the kind of venue in which Obama performs best.

The networks are scrambling because they have spent four years preparing for the four-day convention which they assumed would be held in the Pepsi Center; now it will change locations. There is grumbling on the part of the networks and threats to reduce convention coverage, but the theatre of August 28 plus the symbolism will be much too much to ignore. Bet on massive coverage of the acceptance speech on television.

But what if it rains?

Just asking...(as others have in the press).

I keep reading that in this race, it truly will be a referendum on Barack Obama and that Republican Party nominee Senator John McCain, is really "incidental" to the whole question of who will take the oath of office at high noon on Jan. 20, 2009.

While there is some truth to this, it is exaggerated, and the closeness of the presidential polls in what should be a landslide year for the Democrats hints that Senator McCain and the Republicans (at least so far)are not "incidental".

There are some interesting political calculations going on which I will have more on later but that's it for now. Gotta run...