In the fine tradition of recent Washington rallies, Jon Stewart just estimated the crowd at 10 million people. He added that demographically and ethnically, the crowd exactly mirrors the population of the US — 74% white, 14% black, and the rest other.
[I’m conducting an experiment — if we repeat the 10 million figure often enough, the media will reflexively run with it.]
UPDATE: Photos of good signs from the rally.
UPDATE 2: This has got to be the best “Rally to Restore Sanity” outside of DC — in Antarctica!
11 Comments
Well there was only 9,999,999 because I didn’t go. They told me there would be no koolaid so I told my son you can go, but not me, no way.
Well — I wasn’t planning on going, and did at the last minute. We’re back at 10,000,000
I was there, abojut 100 feet from the stage. Best guesses at this point is th actual crowd size was bewteen 200,000 and 300,000, but I’m waiting for the scientific estimate. GMan, hope you enjoyed yourself because I certainly did – and wish we had held a rally like this 10 years ago.
Jason, I saw you buddy! Who was that cute woman you had your arm around? 🙂
CBS commissioned a crowd estimate from the same company that did the crowd estimate for Beck’s Rally in August. The (unofficial) “official” results? 215,000, with a margin of error of 10%. (Beck’s number was 87,000). You guys did us moderates proud!
However, I’m still sticking with 10 million!
[well, minus one for This Guy.]
UPDATE: Great graphical map showing the relative sizes of the two rallies.
haha–Iron Knee, Grand Inquisitor in the relentless quest to expose political hypocrites, is engaging in Beck-esque crowd inflation. my hypocrisy meter is clear off the charts.
wish i could have gone, but alas, tulsa is nowhere near dc.
Those signs were great. (Yay reddit!)
Now here’s hoping the MSM gets the point. (Walter Cronkite, where are you when we need you?)
A button was issued to each attendee wasn’t it? So isn’t there a fairly accurate account. As with the people who attend Obama rallies, everyone looked happy. And the attendees were not just young people. Let’s here it for the over the hill people who attended.
You computer buffs. I have DSL but am far from the terminal, almost the three miles. I can not watch most vidios (until the second time through) because of the buffering. All the news videos on line are useless to me.
Yet, I had no trouble with the Rally for Sanity love coverage. I was amazed (as I’m sure they were) at the number of attendees.
It was good, coy, sardonic, fun and even a tad goofy. Good entertainment, exactly as promised. Afterward, I heard a few half hearted sour grapes (negative spin) coming from the larger news organizations, who may dislike having a close look in the mirror, but mostly they seem to be limiting the play. Not sure what that says about ’em.
I love it that the rally focused clearly on the fact they were entertainers first, yet still managed to send a very clear message (and more than a few subtle ones too). I doubt that the relevant news medias can say the same about themselves with a straight face – that they are reporters first. I also wonder if there is any chance the news media, or any of us, will learn something from this. Remembering of course that not all news media are culpable, only a very specific and very negative form of news “reporting” that has gained popularity over the years.
Even if the net result of the show is just one day of more serious reporting by the “real” news well,… well done Stewart and Colbert. If it serves as a catalyst for change…well wow, wouldn’t that be lovely. My admiration and applause for all who organized and participated. It takes a lot of moxie to put your neck out like that.
Whatever the final results, personally, I took that advice about remote controls years ago. Wish more people did.
There may not have been 10,000,000 there physically, but I’m guessing there were 10,000,000 of us there in spirit. Next one should be in way northern California – you know, north of Redding. The economy up here is at the top of the worst lists for all kinds of metrics and we could use in influx of cash.
I was there, and it had a great feel. Despite the cramped circumstances, there was a lot of reasonableness.
I don’t know how packed the people were at the Beck rally, but yesterday the crowd was like sardines. Standing straight only. My back wasn’t happy!
According to the Facebook Satellite rally organizers, there were over 1,300 satellite rallys around the world including one at the Everest Base Camp. So if you count all the people at those, and all those who watched the simulcast on Comedy Central (and all the people who were in DC but could see or hear anything from the Washington Monument so they went to the closest pub with a TV) the total “attendance” was likely well over 1 million.
Now we have to respond to the call for sanity and turn off the cable news and tune in to finding ways to work together to solve real problems 🙂