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**Written by Doug Powers

When President Obama officially kicked off his re-election campaign, somebody thought it was still 2008 and ordered too big a room:

That image must come to mind as the party worries about filling the 80,000 seats in Bank of America Stadium for Obama’s acceptance speech:

Top aides on President Obama’s re-election team are terrified that there will be scores of empty seats when he makes his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, party insiders said.

Obama, once the biggest draw in politics, won’t likely attract crowds as large as those at the 2008 convention because voters have gone sour on the poor economy, insiders said.

“It’s always a concern about making sure there aren’t empty seats, but this is different,” said one Democratic official familiar with the convention plans.

“This is a different time than four years ago. It’s a different convention. And the president is viewed differently.”
[...]
“They’re worried they can’t fill the stadium,” the official said.

As a result, Democrats have taken steps to make the convention open to more people, not just party loyalists and donors.

In June, the party announced a contest in which participants have a chance to go to the convention for just $5.

They’ve already moved a planned event at Charlottle Motor Speedway to downtown. It wouldn’t be too surprising if the Dems ended up moving Obama’s speech to Time Warner Arena where the first three nights of the convention will be held. As an excuse all they’d have to do is pretend they just found out the larger stadium is named after the greedy Bank of America and was built with non-union labor.

If that happens we’ll know there aren’t enough true believers anymore. Sigh.

**Written by Doug Powers

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