Great day, great Tea Party in Denver
Posted by Richard on April 16, 2010
It was a beautiful spring day in Denver, sunny and mild — a perfect day to spend 3 hours amidst thousands of small-government, pro-liberty people having a great time at the State Capitol. Best use of a vacation day I've made in some time.
I only caught bits and pieces of most of the speakers because I did a lot of wandering around, looking at the crowd, the signs, and the handful of counter-demonstrators across the street. Bumped into several old friends. I did listen to Jimmy Lakey's speech, and wow, he is as his website bio says, "a gifted communicator."
I didn't see any outrageous signs or other indications that there were "Crash the Tea Party" infiltrators in the crowd. Didn't even see the dead fetus signs that the anti-abortion folks usually bring to every rally, no matter what the cause or sponsor.
One of the counter-demonstrators had a sign that read "Lynch Palin" — thus proving that Tea Parties do attract misogynists who advocate violence against women.
Most of the local media are citing a crowd estimate of 2,000. Last year's event was estimated at 3,000, and I'd say this crowd was comparable, if not larger. But at least no one I'm aware of is calling it "dozens."
One TV station followed the "downplay the Tea Party" script. 9News has a video on their website from their noon newscast in which the reporter on the scene, Brooke Thacker, was asked for an estimate. She said hundreds, even while the brief crowd shots in the accompanying video made a liar out of her. The AP story posted adjacent to the video says 2,000.
It got worse. 9News didn't air any of the speakers or interview any of the organizers — just a clip of some realtor saying that the housing market was really bad. Thacker gave a cursory, shallow description of why people were there. But after the remote from the rally, anchor Kyle Dyer explained that they wanted to present "the other side," so she did a phone interview with the Democratic Party chair, who was allowed to rattle off all the Democratic talking points at some length. Epic journalistic fail, 9News.
The People's Press Collective streamed the whole thing live, and at one point they announced that over 6,000 people were receiving the stream — I think they should all count as virtual attendees. 🙂 PPC has some video and pictures posted already, and I understand video of all the speakers will be available this evening. Check out that Jimmy Lakey speech.
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