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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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    • Author by TexasWanderer (November 05, 2009 3:15 pm ET)
      7 1
      Actually, it was 20,000. I know, because the 30,000 people who were there said they heard it from the 40,000 people who attended.
      <sarcasm>

      Who are you going to believe, Politico or your lying eyes?
      Report Abuse
      • Author by goesto11 (November 05, 2009 3:28 pm ET)
        5 1
        I'll bet there were more people at the original Boston Tea Party than there were at today's tea party protest.
        Report Abuse
        • Author by rkcomments (November 05, 2009 5:07 pm ET)
          6 1
          Hate to say this but you are insulting the Boston Tea Party by comparing it to what these clowns are doing.
          Report Abuse
      • Author by Limit Corp. Ownership (November 05, 2009 4:18 pm ET)
        3  
        I can see it now. The Rodeo Clown's show tonight:

        245,000 people attended the rally!
        Report Abuse
      • Author by aBeck in 10-O-C (November 05, 2009 11:34 pm ET)
        2  
        Aerial Photo posted at ThinkProgressm who report Gordon Liddy's producer claimed 1 million. Not even close.
        Aerial photo@ThinkProgress
        Report Abuse
    • Author by mustardman (November 05, 2009 3:20 pm ET)
      5 1
      They will be saying 10million by the end of the day.

      Yawwwwn.......just another day in reich wing fantasy land.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by goesto11 (November 05, 2009 3:27 pm ET)
      7  
      "So what source did Politico rely on when it arrived at the much larger 10,000 figure?"

      It came from the University of....Oh, I Don't Remember.

      Report Abuse
    • Author by 3amnoise (November 05, 2009 3:31 pm ET)
      4 1
      OH GAWD! Not this stuff again. Come on wingnuts : FACTS...USE THEM. I mean, you're much funnier without them, but I'd like to think even our lowest denominator can at least use facts. Of course if they did, they wouldn't be wingnuts.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by bintx (November 05, 2009 3:31 pm ET)
      4 1
      Everything I've read or heard says 3500-4000.

      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.
      Report Abuse
      • Author by DellDolly (November 05, 2009 3:45 pm ET)
        4 1
        "Get the Red Out of the White House."
        "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."
        Report Abuse
        • Author by wookie (November 05, 2009 4:28 pm ET)
          5  
          "Un-American McCarthyite" (with picture of Pelosi)

          Righties aren't big on history, huh?
          Report Abuse
          • Author by magnolialover (November 05, 2009 5:48 pm ET)
            3 1
            But wait. I thought the common right wing view of McCarthy was that he was misunderstood, and that he was right more often than he was wrong. That's what they tell us anyway.
            Report Abuse
      • Author by Victor Colorado (November 05, 2009 4:21 pm ET)
        3  
        So the crowd was about 1/8,750th of AARP's membership. Interesting.
        Report Abuse
    • Author by aBeck in 10-O-C (November 05, 2009 3:38 pm ET)
      6 1
      I'm sure Michelle Malkin will have an accurate head count for us pretty soon. She will study the crowd's slime trail and extrapolate a number from that
      Report Abuse
    • Author by newzhound (November 05, 2009 4:45 pm ET)
      4 1
      The right wing gasbags built up to this "event" playing the expectations game.

      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...
      Report Abuse
      • Author by Col. Harlan Sanders (November 05, 2009 5:29 pm ET)
        3  
        Only 10,000 ? C'mon, you can do better than that, wingnuts. If you're going to lie every day, and your audience doesn't care if you lie, why hold back? Just say a trillion.
        Report Abuse
      • Author by DellDolly (November 05, 2009 11:05 pm ET)
        1  
        I heard that there were 25 buses. At 50-60 riders each, that's 1000 of the 4000 there.
        Report Abuse
    • Author by prtsimmons (November 05, 2009 4:52 pm ET)
      1  
      Hmm... 350.org organized 5200 events on October 24th to protest climate change. Assuming every event got at least one person, the people who would like to take action on climate change still outnumber the teabaggers. In reality, there were a couple of hundred people at the event here in my small town; some of the events on other continents attracted thousands of people. So hundreds of thousands of people are worried about climate change, and 4000 people are concerned about whatever teabaggers are supposed to be concerned about. I wonder why Fox didn't cover that (actual) grassroots movement to protest climate change, but it covered the Astroturf event to protest taxes? I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that the large corporations that would benefit from tax cuts would not benefit from sensible action on climate change?
      Report Abuse
    • Author by newzhound (November 05, 2009 5:26 pm ET)
      4 1
      Sheer "Am I An Idiot?" InSannity announced the crowd at 20,000.

      Hey - he's always Right.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by rwmacdonald2091 (November 05, 2009 5:32 pm ET)
      1  
      The 10,000 number was the cumulative IQ of the massive rally.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by terrapin53 (November 05, 2009 8:26 pm ET)
      1 1
      I bet more people show up for the Yankee parade tomorrow in NYC. any takers?
      Report Abuse
    • Author by freeman888 (November 05, 2009 8:42 pm ET)
      3 1
      Ever notice that reich-wingers seem to forget their basic math skills whenever their numbers are demonstrably small??

      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.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by jillbcordry (November 06, 2009 4:43 am ET)
         
      I think the number isn't as significant as the homogeneity: white, ignorant and aging.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by bluestate69 (November 06, 2009 5:27 am ET)
         
      i'm surprised lieberman wasn't at this event!!
      Report Abuse
    • Author by puttforever4682 (November 06, 2009 7:04 am ET)
         
      I actually heard one man(I forget who-sorry) say he wasn't good at estimating but he thought 25-50 thousand. This was on Fox as I was scanning for info.
      Report Abuse