McCain sets election night event

John McCain's campaign just announced that his Election Night rally will be in Phoenix, in his home state of Arizona.

What is hopefully billed "Victory Election Night 2008" is set for the swanky Arizona Biltmore hotel.

The Associated Press is reporting that McCain is not going to make his election night remarks in the traditional style -- at a podium standing in front of a sea of campaign workers jammed into a hotel ballroom -- but instead plans to address another group of supporters and a small group of reporters on the hotel lawn.

His remarks will be simultaneously piped electronically to the party inside and other reporters in a media filing center, aides said, because of space limitations. Only a small press "pool" -- mostly those who have traveled regularly with the candidate on his campaign plane, plus a few local Arizona reporters and other guests -- will be physically present when McCain speaks, the AP.

Thomas Patterson, a government professor at Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, called the arrangement "unusual" but said the campaign may simply be bowing to the reality that the candidate's remarks are geared toward the televised audience rather than those in the hall.

"Addressing your supporters election night is one of those traditions in politics, like where you choose to launch your campaign," Patterson told the AP. "Why wouldn't you want the energy of the crowd? And if you're going to lose, you almost need it even more."

Democratic rival Barack Obama earlier this week confirmed that his Nov. 4 event will be outdoors in Chicago at Grant Park.