NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

2012 Democratic National Convention shortened from four days to three, Obama to accept nomination in larger venue

This morn­ing, Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee Chair­woman Deb­bie Wasser­man Schultz made two impor­tant logis­ti­cal announce­ments about the forty-sev­enth qua­dren­ni­al meet­ing of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, sched­uled to take place in Char­lotte, North Car­oli­na, dur­ing the first full week of September.

At a media event in the City of Trees, Schultz revealed that the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion will run for three days instead of four, and also unveiled the par­ty’s plans for the con­ven­tion’s final night, when Barack Oba­ma is expect­ed to be renom­i­nat­ed by the par­ty as its can­di­date for president.

To make the con­ven­tion more open and acces­si­ble, the orga­niz­ing com­mit­tee (with the bless­ing of the Oba­ma cam­paign) has decid­ed to hold the final night of the 2012 Con­ven­tion at the unfor­tu­nate­ly-named Bank of Amer­i­ca Sta­di­um, which, like Den­ver’s Invesco Field, is a venue designed for football.

Read­ers who remem­ber the 2008 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion will recall that Invesco Field host­ed the final night of the 2008 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion. Pres­i­dent Oba­ma deliv­ered his accep­tance speech there before a record crowd of 84,000; NPI cov­ered the event live here on The Advocate.

Bank of Amer­i­ca Sta­di­um — orig­i­nal­ly known as Car­oli­nas Sta­di­um — has a capac­i­ty of 73,778 seats. It is much roomi­er than Time Warn­er Cable Are­na, where the oth­er two nights of the con­ven­tion will he held.

“We want this con­ven­tion to be about more than just the pageantry and speech­es you see on tele­vi­sion. This is about engag­ing Amer­i­cans in a mean­ing­ful way,” said DNC Chair Deb­bie Wasser­man Schultz in a news release explain­ing the decision.

Pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nat­ing con­ven­tions usu­al­ly begin on a Mon­day and run for four days. But the Mon­day of con­ven­tion week this year is Labor Day. Rather than sched­ule a night of speech­es, the par­ty has decid­ed to hold Labor Day cel­e­bra­tions at Char­lot­te’s Motor Speed­way. A spe­cif­ic sched­ule of events has yet to be announced, but will no doubt be forth­com­ing before too long, along with the themes and the speak­ing line­ups for the three fol­low­ing days.

The Repub­li­can Par­ty will be hold­ing its 2012 con­ven­tion the week before in Tam­pa, Flori­da. Both Flori­da and North Car­oli­na are expect­ed to be fierce­ly con­test­ed bat­tle­ground states in this year’s pres­i­den­tial election.

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One Comment

  1. It’s not “the unfor­tu­nate­ly-named Bank of Amer­i­ca Sta­di­um” at all. It’s very appro­pri­ate that Wall­Street Oba­ma’s re-coro­na­tion will occur in place with that appel­la­tion. What a waste of time. At least they cut out one day of waste of time.

    # by bluesky :: January 17th, 2012 at 7:49 PM
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