Enthusiasm gap, schmenthusiasm gap. Without the benefit of months and months of advertising and promotion on Fox News Channel (in fact, I'm only aware of Ed Schultz on MSNBC doing any kind of TV promotion), the One Nation Working Together rally
October 2, 2010

Enthusiasm gap, schmenthusiasm gap. Without the benefit of months and months of advertising and promotion on Fox News Channel (in fact, I'm only aware of Ed Schultz on MSNBC doing any kind of TV promotion), the One Nation Working Together rally in Washington DC has gathered more supporters than Glenn Beck's much ballyhooed rally, which I will lovingly refer to as "Whitestock".

Preliminary satellite estimates put the crowd size at 175,000 to 200,000 at about noon EST. By the calculations of Bachman/Beck, et al., that would mean at least 1,000,000, non?

The question is whether the corporate media will keep pimping the "importance" and influence of the tea baggers and ignore the bigger numbers on the Democratic side of the aisle. Of the cable outlets, only C-Span is airing the event, so clearly this doesn't fit the narrative that MSNBC/CNN/Fox want to push.

FreeSpeechTV is livestreaming the event (although they have had technical problems off and on that periodically take down the site)

Dave N., reporting live: Amazing. The crowd size was clearly larger than the one at Beckapalooza, and the energy was outstanding. You can see the video I shot above.

Also amazing: The kind of camera work I saw from C-SPAN. It looked to me as if they were deliberately shooting the few empty seats that were close to the podium. These empty spaces were largely the result of the way the crowd was fenced at the Mall. But as you can see, it was a massive event.

And yes, I was reminded once again that, for whatever disappointment we may feel with the way the progressive agenda has been stymied and diluted the past couple of years, every progressive voter needs to ask him/herself: Do I want to spend the next two years playing offense or defense?

Then get out in November and do the right thing.

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