Some estimates have placed the crowd in upwards of 2 million attendees at the tea party in DC this afternoon. This appears to be the largest rally on record in Washington. To place it in context, MLK’s ‘I have a Dream’ speech attracted a crowd of 250,000.
America remains a conservative nation.
Vid. Highlights (MSM filter free):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb-VjuZ3p5g[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyMw7qjU2V0[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N77EwEqxjTs[/youtube]
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Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and Twitter/Kris_Lorelli
September 12th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Awesome possum! That’s great! We had 300 at the Tea Party I organized in Muskogee, OK.
September 12th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
I would not be surprised to see the rally swell to close to 3 million by days end.
September 12th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
I have never seen crowds like this (for the right or the left). Governor Palin approached it with her rallies but this is huge.
September 12th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
[...] Tea Party Highlights [...]
September 12th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Foxnews was saying they were claiming only 60,000 people….that’s a mulitiple of 33 to 1 off between those two estimates. Somebody isn’t estimating very well I’d say.
September 12th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Kris,
Can you please cite a source for that estimate?
Thousands of protesters in D.C. blast Obama
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/12/thousands-washington-dc-protesters-blast-obama//print/
Thousands Rally in Capital to Protest Big Government
The crowd numbered well into the tens of thousands, though police declined to provide an estimate of the size of the crowd.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/politics/13protestweb.html?_r=1&hpw=&pagewanted=print
September 12th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Celebrating the 9/12 rallies; Update: Turnout estimated at 2 million
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/09/12/celebrating-the-912-rallies/
September 12th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Wow! This is giving me hope in my fellow Americans where it had started to fade! Well done all of you, American patriots! You are real Americans, the people you’re fighting are traitors who don’t deserve the honor of being called an American!
I loved the sign “I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!” That just says it perfectly for many of us who’ve watched silently, seething, as fools in Washington ripped the Constitution apart, and we’ve hit our breaking point together with this horrible, tyrannical, Orwellian “health care” (it’s not “healthy” and it’s not “care”).
We ought to throw all of the socialists/communists/fascists out of office, especially the senators who have been there for more than a decade. Some of those people are corrupted beyond any normal citizen’s faculty to understand. Obama’s just a puppet whose strings are being pulled by a corrupt political machine in Washington which controls many of the senators and always wanted to have full control of the executive branch too(this just a hunch, but my instincts tell me it’s true- how about yours?). The Senate is full of power hungry people who want to control the whole government in Washington at once, and that’s why it’s a mistake to put a Senator in office instead of a governor, because it extends the influence of the Senate to the executive branch. But the campaign finance laws the Congress put in place now gives Senators a funding advantage in Presidential races. It’s really too bad our constitution doesn’t allow a recall vote a year after the election to fix our mistakes. I’ll bet the country would now be in favor of voting him out.
September 12th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Apparently, we all paid for Obama’s “campaign” appearance in Minnesota today:
http://twitter.com/markknoller/status/3938077012
September 12th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
^ If we allowed recall elections, we would change Presidents almost every year, and few Presidents would last more than 4 years.. It would be horrendously chaotic.
September 12th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Also, I doubt it was 2 million.
Fox, who has every reason to make this number larger than it should be, (same as how MSNBC exaggerated the Obama inauguration numbers), is reporting only ‘tens of thousands’.
I say 100k at the very most, which is still largest, but only 5% of 2 million.
September 12th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Kevin, I admire your power to estimate crowds from the far distance of Buffalo, NY. The ppl of the ground have no idea, right?
September 12th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
which is still large*
September 12th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
#12, I’m just going on media accounts. Fox and ABC are most reliable than Michelle Malkin, if you ask me.
September 12th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Tommy Boy,
Michelle Malkin is NOT a source; nor does she provide links to back up her fallacious claims.
She wrote:
Both of those statements are provably false.
DC police declined to provide an estimate of the size of the crowd. And ABC News is reporting the crowd size as “approximately 60,000 to 70,000 people.”
Kris,
Please correct the crowd estimate and eliminate the comparison with MLK’s speech to keep our site’s credibility intact.
Tea Party Protesters March on Washington
Thousands March to U.S. Capitol to Protest Government Spending, Health Care; Many Chanted ‘You Lie’
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/tea-party-protesters-march-washington/story?id=8557120
September 12th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Aron/Kevin,
ABC reported those figures.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VMXz6xGeqc&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmichellemalkin%2Ecom%2F2009%2F09%2F12%2Fcelebrating%2Dthe%2D912%2Drallies%2F&feature=player_embedded
September 12th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
http://img24.yfrog.com/i/4jo.jpg/
September 12th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Aron,
Did I say Malkin was a source? I just posted the link.
Tabitha Hale is claiming that ABC reported 2 million people.
http://twitter.com/pinkelephantpun/status/3936308212
September 12th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
i think everyone should do a little research on 1828… because I think history is going to repeat itself very soon.
September 12th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
She also claims that the police estimate was 1.2 million.
http://twitter.com/pinkelephantpun/status/3935456971
September 12th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2009/09/12/impressive-turnout-in-dc-for-protest/
If this embellished estimate doesn’t put to rest the absurd claim of 2 million, nothing will.
September 12th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
I’m Mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore.
September 12th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Then you should be able to readily provide an ABC News source corroborating that claim.
September 12th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
What a wonderful day for America and y’all have spent time arguing the exact figure of how many were in attendance. That is what the left wants us to do, fight amongst ourselves, but the whole point of the 9-12 project is to let Americans know that they are not alone. I doubt that anyone who attended the event or who was watching it on live stream or on tv, felt alone today.
Again I say, God Bless America. and We the People…
September 12th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
of course #24…progressives want to change the subject.
It was a great day for fiscal restraint and liberty.
September 12th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Mark Hemignway at The Corner:
September 12th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
I was sitting in the doctor’s office this afternoon and the TV outside the waiting room had on CNN. Since I couldn’t hear the volume, I had to read the closed captioning. The CNN anchor (a brown haired female whose name eludes me at the moment) stated that “over 1 million people” were in attendance at the DC march. Of course, CNN’s website is reporting a completely different number. I have no idea what the real number is, but I know what that particular anchor said.
In any case, the number of attendees isn’t that important. What’s important is that it was, by far, the largest gathering of conservatives that I’ve ever seen. Much larger than even the most fervent liberal anti-war protest marches of 2003-2007. Crowd size does not equal votes (as we saw in 2008 with the Palin rallies), but the fact that this many conservatives are actually showing up for a protest is at least a good sign that the sleeping giant is beginning to wake from his slumber. We’ll see if anything comes out of it in the next few months/years.
September 12th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Is it any less so because the number of those who descended upon DC was upwards of 70,000 and not 2 million? The unnecessary dissemination of grossly distorted figures is what changed the subject.
September 12th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Crowd to CNN, “tell the truth”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nvZhbOGimc
CNN does not talk about the rally, they are talking Joe Wilson.
September 12th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
#28,
after scolding us for not citing a source of your preference, you linked to http://www.rightwingnuthouse.com
I believe that says it all.
September 12th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
It does.
When Robert Stacy McCain reports that a volunteer for Dick Armey’s organization is claiming a turnout of “more than 450,000”, you can rest assured that such an estimate is going to be the most generous — and that’s still less than one-quarter the contrived 2 million figure submitted by Michelle Malkin.
September 12th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Henry Clay would be proud of the MSM.
September 12th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Tabitha Hale (pinkelephantpun) on Twitter: “Okay people. The 2 mil # was an estim from ABC. The 1.2 mil came from Metro police. 1.5 mil from Parks & Rec. There’s no official count yet.”
September 12th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
1.5 Million at DC Tea Party
By Bryan McAffee
http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=4742
September 12th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Robert Stacy McCain has 30 years experience in hard journalism. He wouldn’t report mere fluff.
If Freedomworks is the only organization that will go on record with a hard count, then that is the figure that should be reported until it is refuted by some other organization that did a hard count.
My personal guess would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 200,000-300,000 based on the videos I’ve seen in comparison to other protests were crowd estimated were announced.
September 12th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Keep the Tea Party alive and growing. Show your preference for Liberty over socialism with a shirt at http://tinyurl.com/superfreedom
September 12th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Right so Glenn Beck is the new MLK Jnr. Give it up.
September 12th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
60 million people came out to vote Republican last year and they still lost by a margin of 10 million votes. A few thousand coming out to protest the stimulus or Obama’s plan to fix healthcare reform or his telling kids to stay in school doesn’t suggest any movement. More protested the Iraq War before the country re-elected Bush. Some healthcare reform will pass in the next couple months. If I had to bet, probably coops instead of a public option. Maybe a trigger. Maybe even with Olympia Snowe voting for it. The reaction from the Left will be mixed between celebration and frustration, and mixed on the Right between calling saying Obama’s as bad as Hitler and worse than Hitler because Hitler would have focused more on tort reform.
September 12th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
[...] Malkin and Race 4 2012 have videos and images, and say the estimated number is up to 2 million. Race 4 2012 puts the [...]
September 12th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
U.K. Daily Mail: Up to two million march to US Capitol to protest against Obama’s spending in ‘tea-party’ demonstration
September 12th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
I was there today. I expect there to be overestimates as well as underestimates for crowd size, based on the agendas of who is doing the estimating. I can tell you this for sure: 60,000-70,000 is a ridiculously low estimate. I’ve been to enough football and baseball games to know crowds of 100,000 and up. I would put the number, very conservatively, at over 200,000. Up to 1 million would not surprise me. I kind of doubt it, but it is not impossible that the crowed was well above that, as there was no way to tell from the ground, because you could not possibly see everyone at once.
And these people were from all over the country. And peaceful, and friendly, and clean, and of all ages. A very nice sight. But I’m worried it will amount to nothing if they do not all vote (and if ACORN is allowed to keep injecting fake votes into the system).
September 12th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
By the way, birchbeer (#38), you just keep telling yourself that. Keep on deluding yourself, it only shows how worried the socialists can get. After savaging Bush for 8 years with the adroit help of the leftist media, you finally won a backlash vote. To watch it already dissolving must be very frustrating. I know you’ll try your best to pile as many derelicts, illegals, and convicts on buses as possible for the next election, plying them with cigarettes and sandwiches like they do in New Orleans, but I think you might fall a bit short this next time around. And so do you, which is what really has you worried. Good night, loser.
September 13th, 2009 at 12:38 am
#42, yes, that is really useful to this debate.
THAT is what is killing this country. We cannot have just political disagreements.
We are either ‘socialist, fascist, illegal immigrant supporting, America hating, criminal loving, death panel-creating, baby killing communists’ OR ‘nutjob racist poor-people-hating religious freak idiotic double-racist delusional war-loving psychopaths’.
I’m not saying I’m innocent of name calling, far from it, but it would really help the discourse in this country if we were more civil.
September 13th, 2009 at 12:48 am
#43 The discourse isn’t going to improve as long as the side in power uses it to demagogue and run over the opposition.
You set the terms of the debate based on how you treat the minority when you’re in power.
If you try to run over a powerless minority and force frightening policies on them, you shouldn’t be surprised when they respond savagely.
September 13th, 2009 at 12:58 am
Any honest Democrat would admit that the discourse in America became much more heated after the Democrats passed a stimulus bill that handed money over to ACORN and repealed welfare reform.
Then Democrats demagogued the anger in the tea parties.
Afterward they tried to rush through a massive bill expanding the government role in healthcare in the middle of the summer. They ignored public concerns and fanned the flames of anger by their own determination to run over opposition outside and inside the Democratic Party.
That got a lot of people who had been calm yelling at their Congressman.
If civility was desired Obama could have achieved it by moderating his agenda so it wasn’t so frightening to the other half of America. He came in with a lot of good will that he has since thrown away with his high handed demagoguery and partisanship.
September 13th, 2009 at 1:25 am
it appears as if millions did attend the rally today.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-01-19-crowd_N.htm
September 13th, 2009 at 6:16 am
Why did you just link a story about the inauguration of President Obama?
September 13th, 2009 at 9:22 am
I’m also quite tired of this “civility” and “compromise” and “discourse” baloney. These animalistic attacks reached their peak in the Bush years, with the press and disturbed individuals like Pelosi, Schumer, and Reid savaging Bush at every opportunity, even to the harm of us all. Let’s not kid ourselves, there is no more discourse in this country (for the present, anyway). This is ideological war between those who would like to work hard, take care of themselves, and lead as normal a life as possible, and those who would normalize the abnormal, reward the lazy to win their votes, and who JUST DON’T GET IT that you MUST defend yourself against foreign aggression (your hero, Neville Chamberlain?). I used to engage in the “we’re just as guilty as you” syndrome, but I’m not going to pretend any more. Learn from history and open your eyes: socialism does not work; pacifying killers does not work; propogating sickness in society in the name of “tolerance” doesn’t work (you can tolerate, even embrace the individual while still recognizing the abnormality, such as men marrying men).
No, democrats, liberals, socialists are only interested in “civil discourse” when it appears they may not get their way. I have great hopes that this great mistake we made in November is socialisms last gasp, worldwide.
September 13th, 2009 at 9:31 am
An “honest democrat”? I’ll tell you what, get into a conversation with a democrat and try to get a yes or no answer out of him/her. It’s nearly impossible. The response is usually to change the subject and/or answer a different question. What I find aggravating is that, when they use that tactic, I know that they know that they haven’t a leg to stand on, yet they’ll still duck and dodge. Go on, ALL of you, think of the conversations you’ve had with liberals. I KNOW you’ve all had the same experience.
I also know I will get more responses along the lines of “what an angry and hate-filled individual this Mark must be”. Another dodge. If you have strong feelings on a subject (like people should work for a living, or “transgendered individuals” are to be pitied but not held up as normal), you will get the “hate speech” dodge. It doesn’t bother me any more. My days of being concerned about political correctness are long gone. I know that there is right and wrong (very often in black and white), I know which is which, and I will not play the shades-of-grey game, nor let the liberals define the debate. When you let the liberals define the debate, you are half way to losing your way.
September 13th, 2009 at 9:48 am
birchbeer and other detractors, this is not the same as loud mouthed liberal protesters of the past. They were not representative of main stream America. These people yesterday ARE main stream America, they were democrats and republicans. Many democrats realize that there is a difference between democrat and progressive. What is happening now in Washington is progressive. In Washington, the Republicans and Democrats (upper case and lower case usage on purpose) don’t really represent their own party any longer, they might as well all just join the same party and get OUT of the D Party and the R Party. Come out and be honest about it, you’re Progressives! These people marching are only a small segment of people talking like this, feeling this. There were similar smaller groups all across America yesterday that totalled would out number those in Washington yesterday. It’s a moment in history, open your eyes and watch or participate.
September 14th, 2009 at 6:45 am
“Why did you just link a story about the inauguration of President Obama?” Hey Heath, as Knickers (your follow camp member would say ‘stop throwing beer around.’ The reason Kristofer linked that article is to show a few of you socalled educated Romneyites and Pawlentyites how many people were there by using the map. Apparently you guys are too drunk to count so Kristofer counted for you by using a map which apparently you also never learn to use during your education.