Obama outdoor speech echoes JFK's 1960 move

DENVER -- Barack Obama's decision to move his nomination acceptance speech from an indoor arena to an outdoor stadium may be a smart effort to tap the Kennedy mystique, open up the convention and generally stir things up.

But almost a half-century later, it remains unclear whether the precedent that helped inspire the move — John F. Kennedy's "New Frontier" convention acceptance speech at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1960 — was itself a success, or even a good idea.

Those who were there and those who have studied it disagree on details. Was Kennedy bothered by the setting sun? Distracted by hovering helicopters? Visibly exhausted? Even attendance estimates vary from 50,000 to 80,000.

Kennedy's speech was the first time he referred to the New Frontier, which became the label for his administration's agenda, and its themes were much like those Obama strikes in his campaign.

Kennedy asked his audience not to vote on an irrelevant personal characteristic (his Roman Catholicism); he proclaimed the need for change, saying, "The old era is ending;" and he was part of "a new generation … not blinded by the old hates and fears and rivalries."

In the signature passage, he said: "We stand today at the edge of a New Frontier — the frontier of the 1960s — the frontier of unknown opportunities and perils, the frontier of unfulfilled hopes and unfilled threats. … The New Frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises; it is a set of challenges."

Looking back, "The decision to move the speech outdoors was brilliant, as was Obama's this year," says Theodore Sorensen, who drafted Kennedy's speech and supports Obama. "Kennedy's physical presence was electrifying, and so is Obama's. A big outdoor audience maximizes their presence."

Last-minute agreement

The decision to move the 1960 speech out of the Sports Arena convention hall was made not days or weeks before the convention, but only after it started.

Most of those in on the decision — including Robert Kennedy, his brother's campaign manager — are dead. But one of this year's California delegates, Rosalind Wyman, was at the table. She was a 29-year-old Los Angeles City Council member. She says she fought hard to move the speech to give more people a chance to attend.