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I just saw the DUmmies talking about the 20,000 people that JFin'K "said" showed up so I did a little research and MAN those crowd estimates are all over the place.

One person said 20-25,000 were there, the next article says 12,000, the next article says 10,000.

I'm sure they probably got those numbers from supporters so I'm guessing the REAL number is probably 1-2,000 people showed up!! HAH!!

Here's the articles I found:

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/michigan/index.ssf?/base/politics-0/109147826432270.xml

http://www.freep.com/news/statewire/sw102066_20040802.htm

http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-16/1091461500275750.xml

The event at the fire department was different than the rally, held later in the day. I walked down to get a look at the crowd, far more people were there than I remember showing up for Gore in 2000. I think the estimates of 10,000 or so might be about right, but I didn't actually go through security into the event itself. The rally was initially said to begin at 12:00, then apparently 1:00. In the end Kerry managed to be somewhere around 30 minutes late.

I happened to find a few Bush supporters, one of which had been at the fire department, town hall type meeting. He said Kerry wasn't impressive and took questions from only Kerry volunteers.

Anyway, I was surprised at the turnout at the rally on a very hot and muggy day. Having said that, the word in Michigan is that turnout will decide. Kerry doesn't have a significant lead in a state Gore took by 5 in 2000.