The news that President Obama might move his Charlotte convention speech to Bank of America Stadium provoked a deluge of sarcasm from across the ideological spectrum.
"Obama contemplating moving final day of the convention to 'Bank of America' Stadium. Perfect," Neil Barofsky, a prominent critic of big banks and the Obama administration and the former special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, wrote on Twitter.
"Considering that Obama's acceptance offering would include references to how Wall Street has screwed Joe Sixpack, maybe later in the campaign we could expect a speech about the dangers of consumerism to be delivered from a podium inside Mall of America Field," the conservative blogger Doug Powers wrote.
The possibility that the speech will be moved was first reported by Bloomberg, whose sources were Democrats involved in fundraising for the convention.
The anonymous sources acknowledged the political problems caused by staging the speech in a stadium named after Bank of America, but noted that the move would allow them to raise more money to cover the convention's costs.
Two possibilities here. One is that the Bloomberg story was a trial balloon, intended to soften the backlash when the move is actually announced.
The other possibility is that the Democrats have no real intention of staging the president's speech in B of A Stadium, but are floating the possibility in an effort to juice their convention fundraising.
