Posted on 09/12/2009 2:21:15 PM PDT by Zakeet
Edited on 09/12/2009 4:03:43 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Huge crowd, yes. But not two million. Even DeMint has now changed his first boast on this. Malkin is wrong because the police do not give estimates.
We were there and have seen a lot of crowds on the mall for inaugurations, July 4th festivities, marches, etc. Two million would not fit on the Mall in its two mile stretch.
Best estimate from experience? - 200,000 plus. For those familiar with the Capital and the Mall, the crowd filled the Capital west lawn, the area around the Grant reflecting pool, and west to Fourth street. It started encroaching on another group’s permit west of the Grant statue. It could be another 100,000 to 200,000 because they were forced to spread out along the sides of the rally because of the permit limits and the loudspeakers’ range.
It was a very large crowd, far beyond expectations, but too many groups inflate the numbers (mostly libs). It was NOT “tens of thousands” as the CNN NBC crowd are trying to say, but more like hundreds of thousands. BTW, the DC or Park Police do NOT make estimates, so anyone saying so is wrong.
Not bad for a rally organized by amateurs with no coordinating megalith like unions or the NAACP. Just real people. Almost ALL of the thousands of signs were handmade, not the fancy pre-printed ones handed out by liberal groups like MoveOn and SEIU.
I posted this on earlier threads. Now reports coming out are backing up my estimate. 200,000 (up to 400,000 because many were off to the side in the nether reaches of the Capitol lawn) is a HUGE number - four full Yankee Stadiums. Let’s not get carried away with the 2 million claim and give the left an opportunity to refute everything else.
And it was true grass roots. Almost ALL the signs were handmade, not the product of SEIU and DNC printing presses that characterize liberal rallies.
Mr. and Mrs. Jim Robinson.. you guys look great. Proud of you! Thanks for being there today!
Re: “Do you think the President is aware of the Tea Party movement now?”
And...
“Oh yes. He flew over in the Marine helicopter to sneak a look.
I have worked up there. No matter what the commies over at CNN say, the crowd was at least 1.5 million people; all well behaved Americans of diverse age, gender and origin.
I was so proud to be a FREEPER; It brought tears to the eyes to see so many condemn what this Presidential pretender is doing to America.
Politicians better carefully assess what they are dealing with. Voters are really angry and it will play out at the 2010 elections.”
**********
It looked like an outstanding turnout!!! I’m sure Odumbo DID fly over to sneak a peek — hope he hated what he saw!!
Out here in Los Angeles and vicinity there were other smaller Tea Parties, but loud and certainly grabbed attention though the only MSM we saw at all was ABC with one truck there BEFORE the event was even to start. They filmed a couple of people and left. Surely they knew it was to be from 3 - 5 p.m. and not at 1:30???????
I hope someone has some pix of other Tea Parties from today from across the nation since we could not all be in D.C.!!!! If so, please post!
Was watching Fox tonight to see the pics of the great big tea party....On the Fox Report...they put the logo “FR” on the bottom right of the screen..I’m looking at it..and thinking...”gee..we have our own network already??”
LOL! Love it!
ABC is full of bullplop. Some of the tea parties in the hinterlands have had 70K attendees.
This was the mother of all tea parties, and people all over the country have been planning for it for months.
Baloney.
I have news for you: That wasn’t 70,000 people, it was closer to 700,000 people than 70,000.
Not 2 million.
So, what do you think the turnout was?
Traffic cam screen caps of rally 9-12 - D.C.
Thanks.
Sarah is far too smart and sophisticated to have stolen the thunder from the people's message today. Today wasn't about her, or any politician, except Zero, and she knows that.
Try to understand that this is war. There is strategy at work here like you wouldn't believe.
crowd est. comment for reference.
Thanks
It is 9-12-09.
See the time lapse sequence at Malkin’s blog.
Thanks for the great picture show, Mike. Felt like I was there myself. Good job!
This was The People's day. Sarah knew better than to show up and suck all the air out of it. Love her though we do.
There's plenty time for her to be the center of attention later.
I’m shocked that NBC actually had a fairly credible report without resorting to snarky comments and spouting falsehoods. A truly “hell freezes over” moment.
Based on my experience attending anti-abortion marches (which are always populated by “invisible” people, btw, since apparently about 75% are not seen by the press), I’d say it was around 1 million. There were 450 buses and innumerable people who had come on their own (my plane from Florida was about half full of tea party travelers, some of whom had decided the very day before to buy a ticket and come).
Also, people kept arriving all day and the highways had to be shut down. A guard in one of the nearby buildings (where people had gone to use the bathrooms) said that they had been told to expect only 6-7,000 people, btw! They were completely unprepared for this. Actually, I think the underestimate was intended to make things more difficult for the crowd by letting a gridlock happen and not permitting access to more spacious areas.
However, the crowd was very orderly, and the DC and park police did their best and were very helpful. I did hear someone ask a cop about the numbers shortly before 1:00 pm, and he said about 1.2 million (a number he had gotten from headquarters on his radio).
In any case, they always make aerial shots of events like this (there were helicopters passing overhead filming it), and they can give a fairly accurate count that way. Maybe it would be good to request those photographs, if possible. A count based on Parks Dept. photos was how the press was finally forced to admit that an anti-abortion march they (a) ignored and then (b) claimed to be attended by about 30,000 people was actually attended by at least 500,000 people, back in the 90s. The controversy over that was, in fact, the thing that led the Parks Dept. to stop providing counts.
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