Posted on 10/31/2010 7:47:35 AM PDT by blam
Rally For Sanity Attendance Trounces Glenn Beck's -- 215,000 To 87,000
Henry Blodget
Oct. 31, 2010, 8:59 AM
Most people think these "are sober times, not end times," at least judging from the attendance at two recent rallies in DC.
According to a CBS estimate, 215,000 people attended Jon Stewart's Rally For Sanity, versus 87,000 that attended Glenn Beck's own DC event.
On the one hand, this isn't surprising: Most people are in the middle. On the other hand, it is surprising: Most folks in the middle usually can't be bothered to get off their duffs and go stand around in the cold in support of things.
Or maybe it's just that people love Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
(Or is it that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are ALSO on an extreme and that extreme is actually more vocal than the other extreme. Or is Glenn Beck in the middle? Or is it that a "liberal media" organization commissioned the estimates?)
In any event, when it comes to motivating people to get off their duffs and going out in the cold, next Tuesday will probably be a different story.
See Also: Check Out Some Of The Folks Who Attended The Glenn Beck Rally
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
What is amazing to me is that in this day and age when we seem to be able to determine just about everything using analysis of one sort or another, crowd size estimates seem to be totally arbitrary. I have heard everything from the low of 87,000 for Beck to as high as a Million, and now the Stewart thing estimates range from 40,000 to 250,000 ...
I call bullshit on all of it.
They’re probably using the volume of trash left behind to calculate the attendance numbers.
Did Beck’s turnout have to be bused in and offered free “music”?
Why isn’t the bottom of Stewart’s picture shown?
Why aren’t they showing the empty space?
These two pictures are not comparable, because they cut off the bottom of the pic on the right.
What utter BS. There were far more than 87K at Beck and, in fact, AP, proves it in a backassward way:
In an article on the Obama pre-inaug event at the Lincoln Memorial they put the crowd at 300K. Photos show there were at least that many, if not more, at the Beck rally.
Article on the Obama event can be found here: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/28721619
Anyone who actually believes that there were more people there yesterday than were at Beck’s rally is definitely having a problem with using too many recreational drugs. But who cares anyway? The only numbers that mean anything will start rolling in Tuesday night.
I read somewhere that there were actually 3 DIFFERENT rallies going on at the same time, one in the middle and one each on the sides.
It’s not the size of the crowd that matters, but who does the counting....
Okay - maybe 175,000 of the 215,000 were there only in spirit, or felt like they were there but couldn’t actually attend.
But that’s what really counts in Liberal Bizarro World, isn’t it?
Real facts are so boring, old fashion, restrictive and passé.
“These two pictures are not comparable, because they cut off the bottom of the pic on the right.”
Agreed. I don’t understand why we don’t see comparable photos of each event, both taken from more or less the same height and direction. It’s not like there wasn’t plenty of advance notice.
“These two pictures are not comparable, because they cut off the bottom of the pic on the right.”
“Agreed. I don’t understand why we don’t see comparable photos of each event, both taken from more or less the same height and direction. It’s not like there wasn’t plenty of advance notice.”
Actually, I saw another version of the picture on the left (the Beck rally) posted here yesterday. It extended farther down below the war memorial, showing even more people at the Beck rally. I think someone cropped the Beck rally pick just to make them the same size.
If you look at the horizontal graphic below the two pics, you can actually see that the two rallies were held in completely different spots on the mall, and the area covered by the Beck rally was much larger. I don’t know what kind of vantage point is available to catch both of these venues in the same photo, but given that the joke rally was planned and announced after the Beck rally, there would have been no reason for someone to take a photo at the actual time of the Beck rally that showed all the way back to the area where the joke rally was held. So something like these two pics, along with the graphic below, are probably the best we are going to get for comparison of the two.
” I don’t know what kind of vantage point is available to catch both of these venues in the same photo, but given that the joke rally was planned and announced after the Beck rally, there would have been no reason for someone to take a photo at the actual time of the Beck rally that showed all the way back to the area where the joke rally was held. So something like these two pics, along with the graphic below, are probably the best we are going to get for comparison of the two.”
Sigh...I guess you’re right - it just seems that with all the press coverage of both events, it would have happened even if it were accidental.
Man if this isn’t the biggest lie ever. The photos speak for themselves and the left as we always knew lie.
There, fixed it.
Why does this even matter? I feel we are all getting way to hung up on the numbers... is this supposed to mean that this is a comparison to the country at large? DC is STILL in the Northeast.
And given that there is no way to officially count the crowd (the aerial photos don’t convince me since the perspective and locations are so different) I think we’re all best to just let it go.
The truth is that the rally this Saturday broke the Metro record in ridership on Saturday (http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local-beat/Metro-Set-New-Saturday-Record-106410733.html) and a good friend of mine said since his time in living in DC he’s never seen the town so busy...
But again SO WHAT. Do we think this is any real barometer for ANYTHING?
A rock concert isn’t the same thing as political and ideological call to action. Let’s focus on the election tomorrow.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.