Party scrambles to meet Obama’s call for change

Democrats are on the clock, racing to adjust to a wide range of logistical changes following their candidate’s decision to accept the nomination in a new location.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC), the convention host committee and the Barack Obama campaign all acknowledged that there is a new set of questions without answers now that Obama will make his speech at Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium instead of inside the Pepsi Center in Denver.

{mosads}The open-air stadium can hold a crowd of 75,000 compared to the 20,000-person capacity Pepsi Center.

New questions range from additional costs to security issues to media accommodations to what role the traditional balloon-drop will play in a building that has no ceiling.

Howard Dean, chairman of the DNC, declined to get into specific logistical questions with reporters Monday, but he did concede that after the Obama campaign told the DNC and the host committee last week that it wanted to make the change, there are several new issues to tackle.

“Are there some last-minute changes? Yes. Are all conventions smooth? No, none of them ever are,” Dean said on a conference call. He added: “Obviously, we don’t have all the questions answered.”

Dean said security for the country’s first black presidential nominee was a consideration, and he has spoken with Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper (D) and the two agreed that security concerns can be assuaged.

Ed Donovan, a Secret Service spokesman, said the stadium is not currently in the security perimeter the service had established for the Pepsi Center, and “a new plan will be created.”

Donovan noted that the Secret Service has successfully handled security for comparable venues with high-profile officials, including the president and the pope.

“It’s not a problem,” Donovan said. “Last-minute changes are not a new experience for the Secret Service.”

Two Democrats who worked on the 2004 convention in Boston, speaking on background, said they would view such a change less than two months out as “logistically challenging.”

“That would be difficult,” one said. “Not undoable, but difficult.”

The other 2004 Democratic convention worker said that conventions are “always controlled chaos.”
The change raised eyebrows with the media for a couple of reasons.

To begin with, it was reported last month that the host committee had fallen well short — about $12 million — of its financial goals for the convention.

Obama aide Anita Dunn said Monday that the Obama campaign will be helping the convention.

“We’re working as a team here,” Dunn said.

The other question for news organizations was what the change in venue would mean for the costs and logistics of covering such an event in a different arena.

{mospagebreak}Representatives of the five networks hosted a conference call Monday afternoon to discuss the change in plans. A senior DNC official and a “not hugely high-ranking” Obama campaign official joined the conversation for the first few minutes before exiting the call to allow the networks to continue their discussions.

According to a cable news executive on the call, the big question revolved around how the networks would handle pool coverage of the speech. No final decisions were made.

“I think we’re all trying to figure out what this means for our broadcast plans,” the source said.

{mosads}One of the Democrats who worked the convention in 2004 said the new venue and super-sized crowd could help draw viewers because the conventions “needed a little shot of life anyway.”

“I think this is something everybody will watch,” the Democrat said.

The announcement came the day before Tuesday’s media walk-through. The walk-through had been scheduled to take place last month.

Natalie Wyeth, a spokeswoman for the convention committee, said the committee has been in discussions with news organizations over the last few days and is working to accommodate them like it was before.

Wyeth said the people handling the logistics on the ground are “starting to work through a lot of the nuts and bolts.”

“We wouldn’t commit to the change in venue if we didn’t think we could pull it off successfully,” Wyeth said.

Nick Shapiro, an Obama spokesman, said there’s “a lot of hard work to be done” to get the convention ready, but he said he hadn’t heard from any news organizations that are unhappy about the move.

“I haven’t heard of anybody who’s angry,” Shapiro said. “Everybody seems really, really excited.”

As for those balloons, Shapiro said the campaign’s “not sure about that one yet,” but is anticipating a memorable experience.

Speaking in front of 75,000 on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech would likely be difficult for Republican candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) to match, at least theatrically, just one week later at the Republican Convention.

But Matt Burns, a spokesman for the Republican Convention, dismissed the change as nothing more than “stagecraft and theatrics.”

“A change of venue for a speech isn’t the kind of change the American people deserve or expect — and that’s why we’re confident the next president of the United States will be nominated at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, [Minn.,]” Burns said in a statement.

The Obama campaign, however, argued throughout the day that the bigger venue was reflective of Obama’s goal of including more voters in the process.

“In keeping with that commitment to inclusion, Barack Obama will accept the Democratic nomination at Denver’s Invesco Field — where more than 75,000 people will be able to attend,” read the campaign’s internal talking points on the matter. “At this critical moment, we want to make sure that as many people as possible are engaged — and ready to change the country.”

Emily Goodin contributed to this article.