They Didn't Fill That? Democrats May Downsize Obama Speech to Smaller Arena

With it increasingly likely that Democrats will be unable to fill the 74,000 seat Bank of America Stadium for President Obama’s acceptance speech on Thursday, the Daily Mail is reporting that the DNC is poised to move Obama’s speech indoors to the much smaller Time-Warner arena. 

The good news for the Democrats is that they have a better chance of filling its 20,000 seats:

Democrats are poised to avoid the danger of President Barack Obama accepting his party’s nomination before a partially-empty stadium by shifting his speech to an indoor arena and citing ‘severe weather’.
The Obama campaign have been working desperately to ensure that the 74,000-seater Bank of America stadium in Charlotte would be filled. 

Buses for students from across North Carolina and even members of black churches in neighboring South Carolina have been arranged.

Footage of rows of empty seats at the stadium, home of the Carolina Panthers, as Obama speaks on Thursday night would be politically disastrous – an enduring image of the contrast between his campaign of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ in 2008 and his dour, negative struggle for re-election in 2012.