What Would You Do with 50,000 Tickets to the Acceptance Speech?

Just wanted to check in with a detail from Denver that may not be getting national play.

Obviously, one of the big events this week is Obama’s acceptance speech at Invesco Field Mile High. 75,000 people to hear Obama accept the Democratic nomination, on the anniversary of King’s"I Have a Dream" speech. You’d think it’d be a great opportunity for all the independent voters in CO who are considering Obama to hear him speak and get excited by his candidacy. But it sounds like it’s not working out that way.

For local residents, you could apply online for 2 tickets, both of which had to go to named people with local addresses. But even people who signed up for tickets on the first morning sign-ups opened have been put onto a waiting list.

There are roughly 25,000 people associated with the convention in town, so presumably a lot of the tickets went to those people (though it sounds like not all credentialed people will get into Invesco Field Mile High). Which should leave 50,000 tickets, right?

The perception is that those tickets went to donors and those who–in the interim period after signing up and getting tickets–offered to volunteer. Apparently, the luxury boxes at Invesco Field Mile High were also thrown into packages to close the fundraising gap.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing to ensure that volunteers all get to attend the speech. Ideally, those more engaged Obama supporters will do the work to persuade those independents who are not yet sold on Obama. And if folks are volunteering, after all, they ought to get to hear Obama speak. But for ordinary Denverites who will have to deal with the traffic of the Convention, even the big acceptance speech will be out of reach.

In the end, though, that’s probably a good thing. As is fairly normal for August in Denver, there have been thunder storms every afternoon for the last several days and there’s no reason to expect Thursday will be different. The doors open at 1–which means those waiting for the speech will likely get rained on. Hardcore Obama fans might not mind so much. But asking potential supporters to weather a thunderstorm probably isn’t a good persuasion tool.