True story. Biden came to campaign for BO in a town near us. The event was in a local high school gym, well advertised in advance and free tickets widely available. It was also in the middle of the day. They claimed "about 500" people showed up, but there were no pictures of the audience or even news pans focused on anything other than the stage and his amen chorus which came along. If there were 500 people, at least 3/5th of them were on stage or in the media.
Sarah Palin made a campaign stop at our local airport which was announced less than 24 hours before. Some 6000 people showed up at 6 a.m. to greet her.