Democrats have “repeatedly touted their stand against taking corporate money for their convention in September, and so it was striking to see two emails from the DNC host committee" referring to Charlotte's Bank of America Stadium as "Panthers Stadium," according to Maggie Haberman of POLITICO. President Obama on Sept. 6 will officially accept the Democratic nomination at the NFL Panthers' home venue. Haberman wrote, "It's not like the stadium was ever called Panthers Stadium -- first opened in 1996, it was Carolinas Stadium, and later Ericsson Stadium.” A DNC host committee spokesperson said that the stadium is “referred to locally that way and that they've used Panthers and Bank of America interchangeably.” The spokesperson said that Bank of America was previously "used in an email" (POLITICO.com, 7/17). In Charlotte, Peter St. Onge asked, “Could the snub of Bank of America stadium be intentional? We hope not, and we doubt it.” The DNC host committee's “executive director is a CEO -- Dan Murrey, on leave from OrthoCarolina -- and the co-chairs of the committee are Duke executive Jim Rogers and Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx.” All three “know better than to take a slap at a corporate neighbor.” St. Onge: “We'll write this one off as sloppiness” (CHARLOTTEOBSERVER.com, 7/17). Also in Charlotte, Erik Spanberg wrote, "The financial collapse in 2008 and a lingering mortgage mess caused by the nation’s major lenders led to immediate critiques from some analysts when the stadium was selected as the speech site” (BIZJOURNALS.com, 7/17).
