What's Politico's source for claiming 10,000 protesters gathered in D.C. today?
November 05, 2009 3:05 pm ET by Eric Boehlert
I'm curious because Politico states the number as fact without providing additional information:
The crowd grew to about 10,000 by noon – a significant gathering for a weekday but far less than the 9/12 protests earlier this fall.
Politico's Jonathan Martin clearly seemed impressed that 10,000 people showed up to protest health care reform. But did 10,000 people actually show up? And more importantly, where did that number come from? As we've seen in the recent past, crowd estimates for political rallies can take on a greater significance, and therefore journalists need to be as precise as possible when reporting on the figures. Instead, Politico simply announced 10,000 protesters had rallied without explaining where that figure came from.
By contrast, here's how MSNBC's First Read reported on the rally:
NBC's Luke Russert, reporting from the West Front of the Capitol, passes along this photo of a cartoon Pelosi with the words "UNAMERICAN MCCARTHYITE" scrawled across. The crowd, per Russert, is so far about 3,000 to 3,500, according to Capitol Police estimates...
*** UPDATE *** Three Capitol Hill police officers all guessed that the crowd numbered at about 4,000.
NBC, relying on estimates from local police, put the crowd number at 4,000. So what source did Politico rely on when it arrived at the much larger 10,000 figure?
Curious minds want to know.
UPDATED: Gateway Pundit, last seen lying about the size of the Sept. 12 rally, claims today's protest was "MASSIVE."
Really? 4,000 people, the size of a crowd at a minor league baseball game, now qualifies as "MASSIVE"?












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<sarcasm>
Who are you going to believe, Politico or your lying eyes?
245,000 people attended the rally!
Aerial photo@ThinkProgress
Yawwwwn.......just another day in reich wing fantasy land.
It came from the University of....Oh, I Don't Remember.
But, who cares? After seeing the disgusting, disrespectful signs Americans for Prosperity handed out to these folks to carry, I don't know how any decent American could pay any attention to them whatsoever.
"Waterboard Congress"
"Traitor to the U.S. Constitution" (Picture of Obama on sign)
"Ken-Ya Trust Obama?"
"Un-American McCarthyite" (with picture of Pelosi)
"I'm the King of the World: Remember the Titanic?" (Drawing of Obama in the mold of the 'Jovial Sambo' from the Jim Crow era doing the Leo Titanic pose."
Righties aren't big on history, huh?
The Little Guy said "I don't know how many people will show up" which was probably true. Then he went on to say "10,000? 20,000? 5,000? It doesn't make any difference...they will all be patriots, exercising their rights, blah, blah, blah..."
In other words, we're back to conservative T-ballitics, where losers win, votes don't matter, and "Hey - it's the thought that counts."
In this case, of course, it's the lack of thought that really counts...
Hey - he's always Right.
Right on. This includes two of my family members!
Conversely, their math skills ALWAYS suffer whenever the Democrats have a provable lead in ANYTHING! The unethical righties will always downplay the successes of those of us on the Left.