Month: August 2008

Well we got our first glimpse of the stage where Barack Obama will deliver his acceptance speech at Invesco Field. It looks very similar to a “Greek temple.”

Imagine that…today is the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, which was given on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The Lincoln Memorial has Greek columns, so it’s probably meant to connect Obama with King. I think Obama is going to try to milk the Martin Luther King speech at the Lincoln Memorial for all its worth.

My words to Obama: Senator, I served with Martin Luther King: I knew Martin Luther King; Martin Luther King was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Martin Luther King.

TEMPLE OF DEM ON MT. O-LYMPUS GOP MOCKS GRAND STAGE FOR BAM AS GREEK HUBRIS

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Democrats will kneel before the “Temple of Obama” tonight.

As if a Rocky Mountain coronation were not lofty enough, Barack Obama will aim for Mount Olympus when he accepts his party’s nomination atop an enormous, Greek-columned stage – designed by the same cheesy set team that put together Britney Spears’ last tour.

John McCain’s campaign mocked the massive neoclassical set created for Obama’s speech at 75,000-seat Invesco Field. Some Republicans have dubbed it the “Barackopolis,” while others suggested the delegates should wear togas to fit in among the same Doric columns the ancient Greeks believed would stroke the egos of Zeus and Athena.

“It’s only appropriate that Barack Obama would descend down from the heavens and spend a little time with us mere mortals when accepting the Democratic nomination,” said Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz.

The McCain campaign quickly dispatched a memo calling the stage the “Temple of Obama.”

“We would have expected to read something like this in The Onion. Fortunately for us, it’s true. Unfortunately for Obama, it’s true,” a McCain adviser told The Post.

But the set is designed to evoke the White House and the Lincoln Memorial, not the Acropolis, said staging supervisor Bobby Allen, a Spears set vet.

“We’ve done Britney’s sets and a whole bunch of rock shows, but this was far more elaborate and complicated and we had to do it in far less time,” said Allen, of RDA Entertainment.

“The biggest challenge has been making sure we don’t damage the playing field underneath.”

Asked who is harder to sat isfy – the Democrats or Britney – Allen replied: “I better not answer that.”

The curved, columned backdrop does resemble the portico of the White House, and blue carpeting and podium surrounded by white stars is suggestive of the Oval Office, other crew members said.

Democrats quickly pointed out that George W. Bush accepted the Republican nomination before a similar, though less elaborate, stage in 2004.

Obama chose to accept the nomination at Invesco Field and not at the Pepsi Center, where the rest of the convention is being held, so he can reach out to a larger number of supporters – a move John F. Kennedy employed in 1960.

The late decision to move the speech to the football stadium did not give Allen and the other contractors much time to make the Olympian stage a reality.

“We knew about it for only a few weeks, and had only one week to actually assemble this,” he said.

The structure has an aluminum frame, and the faux-stone walls and columns are made of wood.

Obama has been called “the biggest celebrity in the world” by the McCain campaign. Republicans say that even though Obama will share the stage with Stevie Wonder, the candidate is proving their point.

Asked about McCain’s criticism of the Democratic convention stage, Obama adviser David Axelrod jabbed at McCain for “shooting barbs about the opulence of our convention from the mountaintop in Sedona.”

Democratic delegates defended the grandiosity as fitting with the monumental importance of this election.

“If you ask me, it kind of looks like the columns in the White House,” Ohio delegate Eileen Krupinski said.

Kathy Knight, a North Carolina delegate, said the Republicans will say anything to bring Obama down.

“All they can reach for is what’s negative,” she said. “That’s just tacky.”

Regardless of questions about the temple, people are still clamoring to get inside.

Despite Democratic efforts to stop rampant ticket-scalping for Obama’s big speech tonight, craigslist.com has been filled with ads offering the impossible-to-get seats for as much as $1,000.

Standing on this temple podium, Obama will recall Rev. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech while mourning the victims of Hurricane Katrina when he accepts his party’s nomination tonight – fusing two events central to the African-American experience into his call for national unity and change.

“He’s going to lay out the case for change. He’s going to set the stakes for this election – the risks of continuing down the road we’re on,” said Axelrod, previewing the speech.

Although Obama was still working on his speech yesterday, he will continue to try to paint McCain as someone who “doesn’t get” the struggles of ordinary Americans.

Obama has been refining his text for weeks, working with a team of aides and speechwriters to polish a speech he drafted on his own. For guidance, he has reviewed three speeches of interest: Bill Clinton in 1992, John Kennedy in 1960, and Ronald Reagan in 1980. Obama, who arrived in Denver yesterday, was sharpening his attacks on McCain at a riverside park in Billings, Mont., in preparation for his address.

“Do we have a president who gets that veterans are struggling every day, or do we have somebody who doesn’t get it?” he asked.

“Who wants to give more tax cuts to big corporations including ExxonMobil – $300 billion worth – while we get 100 million people without any tax relief whatsoever?” he continued.

“I am going to fight as hard as I can over the next 70 days to make clear to the American people that they deserve a president and a White House that’s fighting for them. It’s not fighting for the special interests . . . It’s fighting for you,” he said.

On energy, Obama said McCain was “asleep at the switch” – a dig that hinted at his advanced age.

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