Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign has released a memo mocking Democrat rival Barack Obama’s decision to decorate the stage he will give his acceptance speech tonight on as the “Temple of Obama.”
The memo, titled "Proper Attire for the Temple of Obama (The Barackopolis)," pokes fun at the neoclassical-style stage Britney Spears’ set supervisor Bobby Allen designed for the elaborate event at 75,000-seat Invesco Field, home of the NFL’s Denver Broncos.
"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," Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz tells the New York Post.
"We'll put it in play against him," added Brian Rogers, a spokesman for McCain.
The McCain camp already is planning a series of ads that will bring the point home that Obama is a narcissistic celebrity candidate. It has even gone so far as to suggested the junior senator from Illinois’ delegates should wear togas to fit in with the curved, columned backdrop and other Greek-styled set pieces designed to evoke images of Apollo, Zeus and Athena.
For their part, several Democrats point out that in 2004, George Bush accepted the GOP nomination for president on an even more elaborate stage.
“We're trying to do something new," said a senior Obama campaign aide, noting that Obama is taking a page from the campaign book of John Kennedy, who in 1960 delivered his acceptance speech to 80,000 people in the Los Angeles Coliseum.
Allen, the stage supervisor for Spears and several other rock stars, tells The Post he designed the set more to evoke images of the White House and the Lincoln Memorial, not the Acropolis.
"We've done Britney's sets and a whole bunch of rock shows,” Allen said, “but this was far more elaborate and complicated and we had to do it in far less time."
Once Obama speaks, confetti will rain down on him and fireworks will be fired off from locations around the stadium wall, according to an Associated Press report.
"We would have expected to read something like this in The Onion,” a McCain adviser mockingly told The Post. “Fortunately for us, it's true. Unfortunately for Obama, it's true."
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