‘doesn’t fit the normal stereotype’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’
Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com put together an interesting aggregation of attendance at “Tea Party” events around the country and he lists the D.C. event at aproximately 1,000 people. His sources are linked, and in the case of D.C. it’s an AFP article. I wonder if the turnout would have been different had the weather been more cooperative?
Well I used to say something in my profile about not quite being a “tinker, tailor, soldier, or spy” but Tom stole that for our about us page, so I guess I’ll have to find another way to express that I am a man of many interests.
Hmm, guess I just did.
My tastes run the gamut from sophomoric to Shakespeare and in my “professional” life I’ve sold things, served beer, written software, and carried heavy objects… sometimes at the same place. It’s that range of loves and activities that makes it so easy for me to love DC – we’ve got it all.
‘What do we want? Revolution! When do we want it? Er … when it’s not drizzling!’
Fivethirtyeight are great, and I’m not claiming any authority, but the bigger figures are mostly for places that weren’t covered in any depth. Where there were cameras, there were only ever a few hundred people. The showpiece events in DC and Boston couldn’t get to 2000 people between them. It’s seems a bit odd that the big cities with lots of TV coverage and symbolism got a fifth of the attendance of Madison, WI.
(and http://www.flickr.com/photos/michael-litscher/3446290012/in/set-72157616823836496/ doesn’t look anything like five thousand people)
It’s certainly well below the ‘hopefully millions’ that Fox News talked about beforehand, in any event, and the point of comparison should be the photos from Washington yesterday and the ones on January 20th.
I’m proud to live in America. I’m also proud that more Americans attend Comicon than take part in a tea party. There’s hope for the country yet.
This picture from that set is great, Steve. That guy should show up at EVERY protest for anything.