Posted on 09/14/2009 9:38:02 AM PDT by STARWISE
I have been doing some research analyzing photos and crowd data to try and ascertain the crowd size of the 9/12/09 Tea Party protests (which I blogged on here). It seems the best, most recent reference point is President Obama’s inauguration, which was estimated at 1.8-2.0 million people.
If you look at the pictures from last January’s Inauguration it looks at first glance like the Obama crowds dwarfed the Tea Party crowds.
The Tea Party Crowds did not extend back the Washington Monument (there were other events on the Mall yesterday).
On the flip side, the inauguration is a controlled, seated event. It has a uniform density of people sitting in chairs spread out on the mall. Here is a map showing the areas and capacity of people for inaugurations using an aerial view of the Mall:
(Links to USA Today graphic - can't be posted here)
(H/T Moderate Middle) What is clear in the inauguration model is that people are restricted in their movements and are assigned locations with specific capacity numbers. Now look at the Tea Party Pics, especially around the reflecting pool which shows a capacity of 240,000 in the inauguration model.
These two great shots (from someone willing and able to climb a light pole) show how there is no consistent density as with the laid out seating of an inauguration. Moreover, if you look at the inauguration model, the crowd does not spill out into the streets on the side, up the hill on the sides, etc. It also doesn’t go under the trees on each side of the Mall. The Tea Party crowds were thick through all these areas.
In my opinion the crowd was over 1 million. Maybe well over 1 million. But it is hard to compare a crowd in evenly spaced seats in a much more restricted lay out to a crowd of varying density spilling out into every crevice and corner in front of the Capitol.
Given the high density and greater extent of taking over the open ground I think it is very possible the unadvertised Tea Party without any big name draws competed well with the largest inauguration crowd in recent memory.
It easily surpassed the inauguration crowds of all the other Presidents in recent memory. And that is saying something.
Update: Hopefully this answers Allah Pundit’s queries.
Update: Another good picture showing how the crowds are much more compact than during inaugurations:
Note how far people expanded left and right into the trees up to the Capitol building itself. I walked this part of the crowd and it was packed.
Update: This is a great collection of photos, and notice how dense the crowd is out into the distance of each and every one. It was a huge crowd. It was a respectful crowd. It was an intense crowd. The media and liberals can only down play this by denying the gathering storm is coming.
Bump that!
Thanks so much for the ping to this. Bill O’Reilly pissed me off big time tonight saying that the crowd was about 75,000! He is such an idiot moron. He said he got his numbers from the DC fire department...lol. THE UNIONIONIZED(many in SEIU) FIRE DEPARTMENT!
His show is becoming impossible to watch. His researchers suck...lol!
oops..’UNIONIZED’...my bad.
Oh, jeeze .. he thrives on being contrarian
and then creating scenarios that he makes
match his view.
Yes, it is.
I support the 9/12 Tea Party Patriots. To be fair to history, we have to stand for the truth. There is nothing to be ashamed of with the awesome turnout on 9/12/09. However, the actual truth in pictures shows that far more people were at President Obama’s inauguration back in January, then were at the 9/12 Tea Party march. The pictures below show more dense crowds at Obama’s inauguration, without cardboard signs etc which cause people to spread out more. Also, the crowds at the 9/12 event did not go past 3rd St, which were reserved for an annual “Black Reunion” that had setup the large white tents that you see in Tea party photos:
9/12 photo from Capitol steps:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3507/3914298834_f23314cb42_b.jpg
Obama inauguration photo from Capitol steps:
http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/44_01_21/4405_17676915.jpg
more photos of Obama inauguration showing massive density:
http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/44_01_21/4402_17676747.jpg
http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/44_01_21/4403_17681689.jpg
http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/44_01_21/4420_17682573.jpg
http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/44_01_21/4417_17672257.jpg
I thought the DC fire dept said there were 60,000 on Pennsylvania Avenue alone...
Not sure about what the DC fire department said when.
What I am sure about is that BOR is an idiot blowhard. He keeps repeating his little ‘estimate’ in every discussion of the 912 march, even though it has been proven to be wildly off the mark. His researchers suck.
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