The Tea Party protesters were smaller in number. AP Photo David Becker
When it comes to a highly publicized protest there are three words which describe how the protest will be judged; expectations, expectations, and expectations. A protest of 3,000 could be considered successful if the expectation was merely for hundreds to show up. However if you are expecting 100,000 and only manage 50,000 your protest will be deemed a failure.
So far the numbers at the 9/12 Tea Party Protest in Washington D.C. seems to have fallen below expectations but it all depends on who you consult of course. Republicans accused Democrats of purposefully leaking a memo which put the expected number of protesters at two million. The GOP quickly fired back saying two million was far too high a number to expect setting them up for failures. One Republican official said he would be happy with anything above 100,000 while FreedomWorks, who largely helped support the protest, stated 20,000-30,000 would be a good number. The FreedomWorks number likely represents a very low bar from which anything above that could be declared a huge success.
So what is the actual number that showed today? The early estimates have "tens of thousands" attending the 9/12 Tea Party protest today. This number barely meets the relatively low bar set by FreedomWorks and comes nowhere near the hundreds of thousands some were predicting to come. Consider that in support of the event the Tea Party Express had been visiting numerous other cities throughout the country in the last two weeks. In addition the protest had the support of Fox News and Glenn Beck with his soaring ratings. If tens of thousands is the number that sticks it appears to be a relatively disappointing turnout given all these factors. There are uncofirmed reports of 1.2 million people attending to the Capitol Police. If there is any truth to this number it will be a positive for the Tea Party movement but I have yet to see a non-partisan source report such a number.
Comments
How pathetic this story is! The pictures, of course, do not show the realy picture of how many people attended this event. I was a volunteer and I can tell you the marchers were marching in very close quarters with some on the sidewalks. They were marching the entire width of Pennsylvania Avenue (4-5 traffic lanes) for 2-1/2 hours solid!
AT congregating at the Capitol, there were people wall-to-wall covering the entire lawn of the Capitol, as well as all the way down to the Washington Monument!
There is no question, there was not just thousands of attendees, but well more than a million. Most likely, two million!
So if you are going to report a story, do your job and do it with some honesty and integrity!!!
I was in the thick of the march with my family. Maybe the media won't report accurately but there were MANY people who want to be heard and acknowledged by Washington. What does the Park Service say? There were reports of 1.5 to 2 million there. We were also told that the number exceeded the amount that showed up for Obama's inauguration but if you didn't go, the stories have not done it justice.
There were at least 5 million people there! I saw more than 50 buses with at least 100,000 in each bus.
Pathetic: Glenny used 9/11 a national tragedy to promote teabaggers on Washington THEN you people try to compare/contrast Pres. Obama's inauguration which had over 2 million the largest for any presidential inauguration.
By the way the polls are in and it was approx. 50,000 who attended. Faux News and its minions just can't count.
Georgie: 100,000 people could not fit on any bus in the USA or Abroad. Take your 5 million (LMAO) to Pres. Obama soon to be Health Rally 57 million strong.
I was at Pres. Obama's inaguration and there was 57 million people there--I saw and counted.
By Pres. Obama's numbers there were 50 people there, give or take 2 trillion.
Pictures don't lie. The numbers are staggering. Your article shows complete bias. How sad.
Your article is pure, blathering nonsense. Even the blatantly, liberally biased David Shuster put the number at 50,000.
That's on the LOW end of today's estimates. Look at the videos. We're talking over 100,000.
Even if it WAS half that.... 50,000 is a helluva lot of people. As usual, people like you denigrate the event.
My guess is, were this some anti-Bush rally, your article would rave about the huge turnout.
My parents were there. Numbers of 1.5 million were being broadcasted by the crowd control officers. These people (the police)are unbiased in their estimates and do this frequently, so their guess is probably more accurate than most.
This article was written, basically, so you could "broadcast" an anti-conservative headline. The content was worthless-if you can call it "content"-with no real data, only your musings on the issue.
Aerial photos don't lie, but Witt and his creepy leftist cronies do.
I was at the 9/12 march in DC and the number of people appeared substantially greater than the media is reporting. Imagine ten or more (full) football arenas!
"There is no question, there was not just thousands of attendees, but well more than a million. Most likely, two million!
So if you are going to report a story, do your job and do it with some honesty and integrity!!!"
cries for honesty and integrity from a blatant LIAR!!
scum
I think there were 3 million people out there
I was there with my brother there were tons of people. The crowd extended into and past streets. People covered statues. They even opened the mall to make room for the crowd.
I hate to burst your balloon Mr. Witt, but I was there. I saw for myself how big the crowd was. It was huge. Several reliable sources said anywhere from 1.2 to 1.5 million, and those numbers are not exaggerated. There were people packed in for blocks and blocks all the way from the Capitol to the and surrounding the monuments.
Not only that, by the time it wrapped up late that day, there was not one piece of trash on the ground, everybody cleaned up after themselves. You might want to go and find some pictures of the same area after Obama's inaguration. The was so filled with garbage and filth you could not even see the ground, it had to have taken weeks to clean it up. That should speak for itself.
It seems to me that the only one who is dissappointed with the turnout and the success of the 912 march is you.
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