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.
This photo is from Promise Keepers march years ago.
NYT reported it as “thousands”...
more lokely they were ordered no t. This was a -R gathering. No need to make it easy for us.
A friend and I both required a rest room stop after arriving at Freedom Plaza. We were able to get into the Ronald Reagan Building there to use the facilities. I remarked to my friend..."Thank God once again, for Ronald Reagan"...
I was expecting a big FR presence and a chance to meet Jim Rob, but I didn't see any sign of FR or Jim. Where was he located? I spent most of my time near the Capitol steps on its right hand side. I could see the speakers from there, but no sign of FR.
This is not the 9/12 photo, because (a) it’s a sunny day and (b) there’s nobody on the Capitol Bldg lawn.
We were actually first directed to the Capitol Bldg lawn and told we could not be on the Mall because there was some other event (a “hip hop family rally”) scheduled for the mall. However, the other event was not very heavily attended and I think there actually finally was spill over onto the Mall, because the authorities were very restrictive about letting people onto the West Lawn (right in front of the Capitol Bldg on either side of the steps and the “pit” in front of them), and there was no place for the huge crowd to go because Pennsylvania Avenue was completely blocked.
I never saw JimRob either, and I think he should have been one of the speakers. He was at Freedom Plaza with a Don’t Tread on Me flag attached to his wheelchair, but I was in Freedom Plaza only for a few seconds and then I got swept into the crowd (this was around 9:30 a.m.) and ended up on the West Lawn and never saw him.
I saw no sign of Free Republic other than JimRob.
He was trying to exit the lawn in front of the stage and came near me — I was in the lawn all the way at the back against the wall along 1st Street.
I just got back to North Carolina from the rally. It was HUGE! I don’t know where the ‘tens of thousands’ estimate comes from. There were that many waiting in the Metro stations waiting to get on the street. It was a few hours I’ll never forget.
I think ‘Hope and Change’ has finally arrived!
They never shut the Metro down. If anyone had wanted to attend and was "turned away", they should have parked on the outskirts and taken the Metro in. Metro maps available on the internet.
That may be the most incredible protest picture EVER!!
AWESOME!
“WE THE PEOPLE” Party sounds better!!
You know those nasty liberals will tag it the Tea Baggers party and have a field day giggling like 7th grade boys over it!
One of my favorite signs (and there were many good ones) was “Tea Today, Tar Tomorrow”.
I found out that pic is from Promise Keepers in 1997. Someone on Facebook posted it as from the Tea Party. Sorry.
Park Police don’t do estimates eversince Calypso Louie whined aboout their estimates on the million man march. I stood on the corner of 13th and Pennsylvania in front of the CVS and watched the crowd go by for over an hour and a half. It was curb to curb and dense. When I walked up to the Capitol, it had thinned but people were still streaming up. It was a large crowd. I saw none of the members of the DC Chapter and I know that BufordP had a large sign.
Give up. You are surrounded. LOL
Too bad thats not from the 9/12 rally. Its from the Promise Keepers rally 10 or so years ago.
Oops. Sorry, didnt see your correction before I posted mine.
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