I’ll never forget an event I covered where a crowd was padded by union members ordered there by their steward. I remember the man scanning the crowd to make sure the people he ordered to be there showed up.
I’m very curious how many of Sharpton’s attendees will be “ordered” and bussed to Washington. I also wonder how many are professional paid protesters after all it was a year ago this month that we had this moment:
This clinic is adjacent to Denver’s day laborer pickup street, Park Avenue. Being fluent in Spanish, El Marco asked these guys “¿hablan ingles?” “casi nada” was the reply from our amigo on the left. I asked him if he could tell me what the signs said. “¿Quien sabe?” (who knows?) was all he said to me, with a big grin. I’m kicking myself for not asking them how much they were getting paid to support the grassroots.
The base post is here
I can’t help but remember the Cuba scene from Godfather II
Like in Denver I suspect we will have a set of protesters who are paid to be there (Sharpton’s) vs those who are coming of their own accord (Beck’s). Make sure you take a look at the photos that are run. You won’t see as many wide shots of Sharpton’s crew, particularly not as compared to Becks. The media will present them as equal and opposite. One voice here one voice there. In all things visual you won’t be able to tell the relative sizes of the groups.
Last year’s unbelievably huge 9/12 crowd defied attempts to lowball it:
This year the plan will be to over-count Sharpton & co. I wonder which crowd will leave a cleaner area.
One caveat here, For many in the tea party movement two trips to Washington within two weeks is prohibitively expensive. Don’t be surprised that this march is smaller than the 9/12 one since many tea party groups are going to Washington on 9/12. And the reverse is of course true. In that sense Beck’s Restoring Honor rally is about the power of Beck.
Update: The NYT reports on “parallel rallies” even though the Washington post reports live from the Sharpton event that he has drawn “hundreds”
As town hall says:
There is no equivalence between these two rallies. That won’t stop the MSM from trying to portray them as ‘competing’ gatherings, though.
Guess which narrative the MSM will use?
memeorandum thread here.
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