John Berman has been at ABC since 1995, and allowed to appear on television since 2001. He covered the 2008 campaign extensively, following John McCain and Mitt Romney during the primaries and then Barack Obama in the general election. He also spent more than 20 months chasing George W. Bush around the country as a producer from 1999 until 2001, earning the clever nickname, "Pain in the Ass," from our 43rd president. He is a frequent and sometimes welcome contributor to all of ABC's broadcasts.
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What Else the Crowd Size Means
August 28, 2008 4:37 PM
2:24 pm MT: Tonight’s crowd of nearly 80,000 people is more than about a backdrop. The Obama campaign is turning it into the largest activist training session in history.
About 4 pm MT, before the program begins in earnest, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe will take the stage. He’ll give a five-minute pep talk/organizing tutorial to the crowd. A local campaign volunteer coordinator will get his own five minutes, an Obama campaign official said.
Tonight, Section 129 of Invesco Field -- plus a section of the concourse -- will be transformed into a phone bank. Attendees are being encouraged to drop by as part of their evenings.
Roughly two-thirds of tonight's tickets were distributed to residents of Western states. The Obama campaign estimates that between 35,000 and 40,000 residents of Colorado alone will be here tonight.
To give you a sense of what that volunteer army could mean, George W. Bush carried Colorado (nine electoral votes) by just under 100,000 votes in 2004.
Republicans are already pouncing on the size of this event, just like they did Obama's massive rally in Berlin. But Obama campaign officials are happy about what they call the "enthusiasm gap."
"We have no regrets about" moving the convention from the more intimate Pepsi Center to massive Invesco, a senior campaign adviser told ABC. "They can’t fill the place. We're happy that we can."
August 28, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (12)
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The "enthusiasm gap" will surely benefit the Democratic Party this year as many Republicans just can't get excited about four more years of Dubya in the form of a 72 year old shell of his former self.
Voter registration and education efforts over the next month or so will segeway nicely into Get Out The Vote (GOTV) work that will bury John McSame!
Obama 08
Posted by: jackt51 | Aug 28, 2008 4:55:25 PM
THE TORCH HAS BEEN PASSED TO A NEW GENERATION OF AMERICANS!!!
08AMA ALL THE WAY!!!
Posted by: 08AMA ALL THE WAY! | Aug 28, 2008 4:59:02 PM
I wonder if the polling for this elections really takes into account of this 'enthusiasm gap'. I am sure race is an issue, but so is the immense excitement surrounding the Obama campaign. Have the polling companies taken this into account.
Posted by: markymark | Aug 28, 2008 5:05:56 PM
This country is going to the DOGS
Posted by: denny boy | Aug 28, 2008 5:06:27 PM
How large is large to encompass emptiness? According to Zerobameus, God of Nothingness, you need to build a temple, the Temple of Doom, on top of MileHigh, then, he will drop down up on his followers, revolving at a frequency of 0.033333 Hz to spin his empty words to fill a stadium.
You do the rest of calculation for the Universe.
Posted by: d0 | Aug 28, 2008 5:12:00 PM
Has anyone noticed that McCain claimed his POW experience is why he has so many houses?
Am I missing something? Is he really saying that experience is still effecting him mentally so he has to own so many houses?
Think about it. What other mental issues does McCain have from 35 years ago?
I sure hope he doesn't harbor ill feelings toward anyone? We can't afford any more wars until we finish the ones we have.
Posted by: Dan | Aug 28, 2008 5:17:24 PM
Yawn.
The whole world is laughing at the spectacle (and that stage). This has been the biggest joke to happen to politics in a long, long time.
Posted by: Jo | Aug 28, 2008 5:20:10 PM
Who are the rock bands playing tonight for free?
That's why you have all the people showing up. Thats why they showed up in Oregon and Berlin.
Just a few little "tidbits" the mainstream media don't want you to know!
Lol.
Posted by: Jo | Aug 28, 2008 5:21:21 PM
I've never seen anyone live down less to their hype as this guy Barack Obama. No wonder they need so many special effects. Sad.
Posted by: Beth | Aug 28, 2008 5:22:47 PM
It's going to be like dawn of the dead, with all those mindless bots in one place.
Posted by: Mack | Aug 28, 2008 5:36:17 PM
I was not in that crowd. But i felt one of them, of us. There are many of us. We need each other to win this thing. We are becoming to be important to each other. I understood - that day made me more understandinng for all people around me , more warm, more sensible.
Posted by: Linda,Fl | Sep 2, 2008 1:38:18 PM
Mack - that is You, who is mad around Bushs ( Bush and McBush and all that tribe).
Bush is Criminal. So, calm down before to judge other people.
Posted by: Linda,Fl | Sep 2, 2008 1:43:43 PM
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