CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) - Severe weather forecasts put a crimp on U.S. President Barack Obama's nomination party on Wednesday, forcing the Democratic Party to move his planned acceptance speech from a 74,000-capacity outdoor football stadium to a much smaller indoor arena.
The shift to the approximately 20,000-seat Time Warner Cable Arena was a setback for Obama, who hoped to create a visual spectacle in Charlotte's Bank of America stadium to rival his 2008 acceptance speech in a football stadium in Denver.
The decision disappointed tens of thousands of Obama supporters from around the country who had been given tickets to the biggest speech in his campaign for the November 6 election against Republican rival Mitt Romney.
Weather forecasters had predicted a chance of thunderstorms on Thursday night in Charlotte, which has experienced heavy evening rains for the last few days.
'From the campaign's perspective, we are disappointed we had to make this call,' a Democratic official said. 'This was not a political decision. This was a public safety decision.'
The venue change was a comedown for Obama after a high-energy opening night on Tuesday that featured an impassioned speech by first lady Michelle Obama, who portrayed her husband as a man who had lived through and understood the struggles of everyday Americans.
The speech fired up Democrats, who will hear on Wednesday from the party's most popular elder statesman, former President Bill Clinton. He will look to build on the momentum of the first night with a reminder to voters of the economic good times he led in the White House.
Obama volunteers Honora Price and Gayle Fleming were leaving Arlington, Virginia, to drive to Charlotte when they saw a television news ticker announcing Thursday's venue change.
'We'll find a watch party and go to that,' Fleming said. We will be in Charlotte where the action is. So I'm fine. Will I be disappointed? Of course I'll be disappointed. But I've seen Obama a lot of times. So we'll be in Charlotte and we'll make the best of it,' she said.
Obama will speak to supporters who had tickets for the stadium on a conference call on Thursday afternoon.
Delegates said the decision to move Obama's speech indoors would not detract from his message, and the smaller confines could be an advantage.
'ELECTRIFYING'
'I think it's going to be electrifying,' said James Mitchell, 45, a Michigan delegate. 'Sometimes smaller venues create an energy and an intensity that is going to be over the top.'
Republicans questioned whether Democrats were having trouble filling the seats, although Democratic officials said they had distributed all 65,000 available tickets and had a waiting list for more.
Both parties have now been forced to adjust their convention programs because of Mother Nature. Tropical Storm Isaac disrupted Romney's Republican nominating convention last week in Florida, forcing him to cancel one day of the planned four-day gathering.
The appearance by Clinton, perhaps the party's most popular elder statesmen but a sometimes uneasy ally of Obama, highlights a night that will conclude in the late hours with Obama's nomination for a second term.
'He's going to make the case for Barack Obama,' Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obama's former chief of staff and a former Clinton aide, told CBS's 'This Morning.'
He said Clinton will remind voters of 'who we are as a party and why that matters to the middle class and people who are struggling.' The two share the 'same values, same policies, same goals,' Emanuel said.
Clinton's high approval ratings, and voter nostalgia for the budget surpluses and job growth he produced during two terms as president in the 1990s, have made him a valuable asset for Obama despite a sometimes rocky relationship after Obama's bitter 2008 primary battle with Clinton's wife, former first lady Hillary Clinton.
Clinton, who will be speaking at his seventh consecutive convention since his debut in 1988, already has appeared in an ad for Obama.
The convention schedule on Wednesday also includes a featured slot for Elizabeth Warren, the U.S. Senate candidate from Massachusetts, and U.S. Representative Barney Frank.
(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Eric Johnson; Editing by Alistair Bell and Alden Bentley)
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