Posted on 10/03/2010 8:10:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
Another exclusive Pajamas Media crowd estimate.
The widely publicized, heavily subsidized “One Nation” rally was Saturday in Washington, D.C. As has been openly admitted by the organizers, which included the AFL-CIO, the SEIU and Obama’s perpetual campaign organization Organizing for America, this rally was held in the same place and at basically the same time of the day as Glenn Beck’s 8/28 “Restoring Honor” rally, specifically to demonstrate the depth of support for the president’s program. The convention organizers had a number of advantages, perhaps the greatest being that the buses bringing in demonstrators were apparently subsidized by the rally organizers.
Some of the initial reports were very positive: the organizers estimated 175,000 to 200,000 attendees, according to Crooks and Liars‘ report of “preliminary satellite estimates … at about noon EST [sic].”
(Where do they get these satellite estimates? PJM has been completely unsuccessful finding satellite companies that can give us these sorts of pictures on demand; there isn’t a satellite passing over Washington, D.C., any time you want one.)
Comments from Left Field notes this “more than doubles the 87,000 attendees of Glenn Becks Restoring the Honor Rally,” using the CBS News estimate I discussed at length here in August (“You Can See November from the Washington Monument”).
Naturally, we were interested in the topic. Following various crowd estimates has become a running topic of interest at Pajamas Media, starting with my original crowd estimates that began with a “back of the envelope” calculation in a comment at Vodkapundit, followed by a more formal calculation here in PJM (“March on Washington: How Big Was the Crowd?“).
Since then, I’ve built up a fairly well described methodology: we use Google Earth to estimate the area of the crowd from whatever photographs are available, then multiple by several different constants depending on the crowd density. These estimates are taken from published Park Service standards going back at least to the Obama inaugural.
Since the “One Nation” rally was consciously positioned at exactly the same place as the “Restoring Honor” rally, we can compare with my original baseline very easily.
Here’s the crowd perimeter as I drew it with Google Earth:
That area was about 2.4 million square meters. Using the crowd density estimates, we finally arrived at these estimates for the Beck crowd:
Estimate | 10 square feet per person | 5 square feet per person | 2.5 square feet per person | |
Maximum: | 215,000 people |
|
430,000 | 860,000 |
90 percent | 200,000 | 400,000 | 800,000 | |
75 percent |
|
163,000 | 326,000 | 652,000 |
50 percent | 108,000 | 216,000 | 432,000 | |
CBS News Estimate | 87,000 | 87,000 | 87,000 | |
40 percent | 86,000 | 172,000 |
|
344,000 |
The assumptions there correspond to the Park Service’s standard for a “dense crowd” of about 5 square feet per person, my estimate of the crowd densities observed in the photos (10 square feet per person), and estimates from people in the most densely packed parts of the crowd (2.5 square feet per person).
All things considered, I think the best estimate, finally, is that Beck attracted somewhere between 250,000 and 400,000 people.
The Associated Press summed it up this way:
Organizers claimed they had as many participants as Beck’s rally. But Saturday’s crowds were less dense and didn’t reach as far to the edges as they did during Beck’s rally.
This is illustrated in these comparative photographs:
Click here for a photo from Saturday’s left-wing rally.
Click here for a photo from the Glenn Beck rally.
Compare and contrast as necessary — as the lawyers say: “the thing speaks for itself.”
It’s difficult to place the edges of the crowd from these photographs, simply because the crowd in that one overhead photo is so far down the picture. However, the grassy area around the Lincoln Memorial is roughly one tenth the area in the full map above. That means the “One Nation” crowd would have been roughly 22,000 to 85,000 people at most.
They looked like they all got new tee shirts too.
You would expect that SOMEBODY, whether Fox News, Breitbart, some some private individual would have gone up there and taken pics, and they would have appeared on the web by now. Was there access to the Washington Monument during the rally?
[They looked like they all got new tee shirts too]
Yes, lol, I forgot to mention that! Shoot, it was just a big picnic for them, with everything paid for and some freebies too!
Whatta sham, and the MSM goes along with it trying to make it look like a really big thing.
Lol, my best laugh of the day......so far!
Well it’s what their wives have been telling them for years, so naturally, they’ll come to that conclusion here.
Well, the liberals were all set to have a p***ing contest about the crowd sizes of Beck vs. this joint liberal group rally.
If the liberal groups had gotten a bigger crowd, that would have been a big part of the story. It would have been played up as showing that more support the liberal/radical groups than support Beck and conservatives, etc.
But since the liberals can’t win that p***ing contest, they have decided that the crowd size doesn’t matter after all.
I can’t wait for the Jon Stewart rally on Oct. 30th. More liberal stuff to hear. Though in Jon Stewart’s case, it will be a liberal comedian making fun of conservatives.
Jon Stewart’s rally may well backfire as much as Stephen Colbert testifiying to Congress backfired. Comedians have their time and place, but there’s no way Jon Stewart can expect to be taken seriously as a serious commentator. Yet that’s exactly what he wants to do.
That’s pretty much what I was thinking: these people are so blinded by ideology that they can’t see the results of their ideas. The repeated failures of leftism is only because “THEY” weren’t the ones in charge...
It’s sad, and frightening at the same time.
Thanks for this posting! Interesting and the crowd comparison photos are excellent! A lot goes into estimating crowds, but nothing says it all like an over-head photo! ( As long as the photos were taken at approximately the same time of day. )
Do you guys out there in media land recall the event pictured below _______ ? ?
The March Was Scheduled to Begin at 11:30 AM. People Started Showing Up At 8:00 AM Until After 1:00 PM. The Camera Was Turned Off at Exactly 11:30 AM. Hundreds of Thousands More Were Gridlocked On Freeways and Trapped By Traffic
Cheers
Mel
bookmark
They’re liars. Of course they’re going to lie about this.
This is very unfair. From now on we must limit Beck attendee’s and require some of them to attend the socialist’s rally so that each has an equal number.
[these people are so blinded by ideology ]
I’m glad you agree with my thoughts. I do a lot of reading all over the web and am astounded that they see things the total opposite of how we do. It’s VERY scary and you can’t convince them of anything by talking or even showing evidence!
They still expect Mommy to pick up after them.
Fom the article:
“Some of the initial reports were very positive: the organizers estimated 175,000 to 200,000 attendees, according to Crooks and Liars...”
LOL.
The shadows tell the story... I looks like the commie rally pic was taken at near noon sun time - 1:00 pm local clock time.
What were the hours of the rally?
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