Obama Uses Small Chance of Rain As Excuse to Downsize Democrat National Convention by 50,000 People

Update – 9/6/2012 7:54AM CST
The chance of rain that “forced” the Democrats to move Obama’s acceptance speech into a 50,000 less capacity venue is now expected to be at 0% chance of rain by Obama speech time.

Obama Uses Small Chance of Rain As Excuse to Downsize Democrat National Convention

It’s not 2008 anymore, and the enthusiasm for Obama has definitely not repeated itself in 2012.

Obama Uses Small Chance of Rain As Excuse to Downsize Democrat National Convention

The Obama re-election team doesn’t want people to see that their National Convention is a bust. The number of people attending the 2012 Democrat National Convention is much smaller than the Democrats expected, and a complete embarrassment to the Obama administration.

The Obama people have instead used the small 20% chance of rain as an excuse to move Obama’s acceptance speech away from Bank of America Stadium to Time Warner Cable Arena, which holds 50,000 less people, and will make it much easier to try and hide the lack of enthusiastic attendees at the 2012 Democrat National Convention.

The audience for President Barack Obama’s convention speech just got a lot smaller – and Republicans think they know why.
The Democrats’ decision Wednesday to move Obama’s acceptance address from the outdoor Bank of America Stadium to the indoor Time Warner Cable Arena means about 50,000 fewer people will be able to see the speech in person.

Democrats said the move was due to weather and safety concerns: The Weather Channel is predicting a 30 percent chance of rain on Thursday night, with isolated thunderstorms.
But conservatives pounced, asserting the move had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with Obama’s inability to fill Bank of America Stadium. The stadium, the home of the Carolina Panthers, has 73,778 seats. The arena, where the rest of the Democratic National Convention is taking place, has a maximum capacity of 20,200.

The Republican National Committee quickly labeled it a “speech downgrade.”

“Busing people in became very difficult because of the length of time it takes to bus people in, unions were not busing people in, they didn’t have a reliable base to add 70,000 seats, so weather became the convenient excuse,” Brad Blakeman, a former adviser to President George W. Bush, said on Fox News, later adding: “Can’t they afford a Farmers’ Almanac? All you have to do, and planning goes on a year in advance, is look at the weather patterns.”

On Twitter, conservatives snarked at the weather claim. National Review author Jim Geraghty linked the move to Clint Eastwood writing: “Just to clarify, Obama’s speech venue changed because of fears of… empty chairs.” The Washington Times’ Emily Miller posited a supernatural explanation: “Did Pres. Obama pay God or devil to send rainstorms to Charlotte to avoid the embarrassment of an empty stadium for his speech?” And Mitt Romney’s campaign press secretary, Andrea Saul, used the hashtag “#cantfillstadium.”
Many also gleefully retweeted Brad Panovich, a meteorologist at Charlotte’s NBC affiliate, who wrote “there are actually very little weather concerns Thursday night” and said the “severe threat is almost zero.”

Democrats said 65,000 people had tickets for the speech, and another 19,000 people were on the waiting list. Ticket-holders will instead get to participate in a conference call with the president on Thursday.

In 2008, Obama gave the acceptance address at Invesco Field in Denver in front of more than 80,000 people.

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