Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:07 pm
On the Freedom Works blog, the organization is still claiming that hundreds of thousands of people attended yesterday’s DC protest, “The crowd was HUGE. Any reporter that claims thousands, or even tens of thousands of attendees was either not there or was willfully misreporting the significance of the event.” However, actual attendance was estimated at 30,000-70,000.
The post stated that, “The crowd was HUGE. Any reporter that claims thousands, or even tens of thousands of attendees was either not there or was willfully misreporting the significance of the event… What I know for sure is that there were at least hundreds of thousands of peaceful demonstrators that descended upon Freedom Plaza, jammed Pennsylvania Avenue from there to the Capitol for over 3 hours, swamped the West Front of the Capitol, and flooded down the Mall and various side streets. Our sound system, fully capable of reaching well over 100,000, was completely insufficient. ”
Later the post also denied that the protest was Astro Turf, “I hope that the Angry Left wants to continue to have a debate over how many hundreds of thousands of frustrated Americans took the extraordinary effort, time and resources necessary to commit themselves to attend the largest gathering of fiscal conservatives ever in Washington D.C. I also hope they continue to dismiss every one of us as “fake,” “AstroTurf,” “Un-American,” even “domestic terrorists.””
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Every organization inflates their attendance numbers, but this is ridiculous. Police officials estimated attendance at 30,000 yesterday. After talking to the fire department ABC News put the figure at 60,000-70,000, which is a very small number when you consider how much publicity Glenn Beck and Fox News had been giving the event. Perhaps, right wingers prefer to watch a protest on television over participating in one.
Beck, his 9/12 organization, and Freedom Works had been counting on hundreds of thousands of angry right wingers to flood Washington, but what they got was a crowd smaller than the one for the Notre Dame/Michigan football game. Liberals aren’t angry and debating how many people attended. They are mocking another right wing flop.
I don’t understand why corporate interests keep giving money to Freedom Works’ underwhelming efforts. It is also becoming obvious that some kind of healthcare reform bill is going to pass. These protests are futile at best. The same right wing fringers keep showing up at all of these events. The organizers aren’t attracting mainstream support.
I don’t believe that the protesters are un-American or domestic terrorists. I think they are a small vocal minority that absolutely despises Obama. This wasn’t an anti-healthcare protest. It was an anti-Obama protest. Freedom Works can spin this all they want, but their 9/12 march was a gigantic failure.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
