Romney/Ryan Rally Booked in Amphitheater Built by CCC

FOX 31's Eli Stokols:  Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running-mate, Paul Ryan, are heading back to Colorado next week and will hold a joint rally Tuesday night at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, FOX31 Denver is first to report.

The event, which will start at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 23, is scheduled for exactly two weeks before Election Day.

There is perhaps no more inspiring venue to hold a large public gathering in the Denver metro area than Red Rocks Amphitheatre, our 9,000-seat open air performance space cut into an acoustically perfect bowl of Fountain Formation sandstone at the foot of Mt. Morrison. So many Denver residents have marked the passage of time by the countless great musicians that have performed there, or attend the annual nondenominational Easter sunrise services.

But at the base of the statute you can see above, which many Republican attendees of Mitt Romney's rally will see on Tuesday as they take their seats, here is the inscription:

That's right, folks--Red Rocks Amphitheatre was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Red Rocks was a "New Deal" employment project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

Think about it: hundreds of men put to work by the government for five years to build...a concert hall? So Dodge Trucks--another recipient of taxpayer bailout dollars (!)--could sponsor the Red Rocks Summer Concert Series all these years later? Seriously, folks, is there a self-respecting modern-day Republican out there who would not have instinctively called the idea of using taxpayer dollars to build Red Rocks Amphitheatre a "boondoggle?"

Democrat Laura Chapin, a former speechwriter for Gov. Bill Ritter, wrote at the Denver paper's guest blog Friday about the irony--or in her words, the hypocrisy--of Romney holding a rally at an amphitheatre that was built with "failed stimulus money."

Much like the factory Romney spoke at in Colorado Springs that gladly took ARRA contracts, it's a point that shouldn't be lost as rallygoers bask in the magnificent view.

There's a component of hubris in Tuesday's Romney/Ryan rally at Red Rocks.