Barack Obama is giving his acceptance speech on Thursday night in front of 76,000 people at an outdoor stadium in Denver. Leaving matters of content aside, it sounds like Great Television: A huge crowd seeing a black man nominated for President on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. As a display of party unity, and because they want the face time, all the major Democratic leaders will be up there, and there are rumors that Muhammad Ali will join them on the podium. Ted Kennedy, who is ailing, is currently scheduled to address the convention via a taped message on Monday night…but I'll betcha someone's trying to engineer a live appearance by him on Thursday.
A little while ago, a gent named Stuart Shepard — who does video commentaries for James Dobson's Focus on the Family group — had one up suggesting that people should pray for torrential rain that evening. What he wanted was precipitation so strong that the TV cameras could not make out the podium.
It was a joke — not a particularly good one but a joke. But it was also a joke that was obviously laying the groundwork for an assertion that would be made if it did rain…"God heard our prayers and cast His vote on Obama." Something like that. Of course in the video, Shepard also set up the notion that if it didn't rain, that would not prove that God didn't curse the Democratic ticket. That's one of the maddening cheats of the televangelist crowd. You know, the Lord works in mysterious ways so whatever he does, that's proof he's on their side.
Shepard's video didn't go over well. It brought so many condemnations, even from folks who oppose Obama, that Focus on the Family has been yanking it all over the 'net, taking it off all the sites where they posted it and threatening legal action to get it yanked when someone reposts it. (But they can't catch 'em all. Here's a link to a gay-themed blog that has it up at the moment.)
So…what are the chances that this gala campaign event will get rained on? The National Weather Service is currently pegging a 10% chance of thunderstorms in Denver on Wednesday and Thursday, but it seems pretty remote for Thursday night. The "discussion" that accompanies that forecast says, in part…
Wednesday through Saturday…models still show the upper trough to our north on Wednesday with a flat ridge over us. From Thursday onward the upper ridge moves back in from the west with pretty dry conditions prognosticated.
It doesn't look like Mr. Shepard is going to get his torrential downpour. I think I'd like to see it rain that night…but only on him.