The Numbers Game
By***This article relates to the Nationwide Tea Party held on April 15, 2009. If you are looking for information on the 9/12 Taxpayer March on DC, please click here.***
Numbers aren’t everything. After all, relatively few patriots actually participated in the original tea party in Boston. And, even in today’s mass society, quality is worth examining along with quantity; we haven’t heard of a single instance of a tea party movement descending into a confused mob burning mattresses, breaking windows, or overturning cars… or of any tea party movement event being broken up by tear gas. The tea partiers should be exceptionally proud that even when protesting in the thousands, they remained patriots throughout. No one in the mainstream media is pointing it out, but the tea partiers behavior has distinguished them from the various left-wing movements just as much as their numbers have.
Nevertheless, reporting and analysis of large protest movements almost always involves some discussion of the number of people involved. Experienced organizers recognize this and issue press releases and inflated counts almost immediately. Do you remember the “million man march?” There were actually only about a quarter of a million people who attended according to some estimates, but the entire effort was aimed at playing the numbers game.
We have not yet seen a credible or official guestimate regarding the number of protesters involved in tea parties nationwide. We think this is a shame because our back of the envelope math figures that the numbers could exceed a million participants… and we’ve seen informal reports of over 500,000 attendees tallied with hundreds of tea parties not yet counted. Not bad for workday events catering to taxpayers who typically have to work on workdays and may have been scrambling on that particular workday to deal with filing tax forms at the last minute.
So, if you hear an Obamabot tell you that attendance was low or that the protests fizzled, you can just ask that person if they pause to think before they recite the talking points they are handed. The Left is going to try to combine the expectations game with the numbers game, and while that’s a standard disad, it shouldn’t work in this case. The tea party movement — which is only a few weeks old — doesn’t have an immediate head count because they are truly grassroots and many organizers and protesters were doing this for the first time, but even before the official numbers are released, it is clear that the tea party movement delivered throughout the United States and that everyone involved should be impressed by the results and energized by the level of participation.
If you have more links with reports on attendance that you’d like to share, please comment or send them to us so that we can add them to this post.
Links (Last Update on April 18, 2009):
Overall Tax Day Tea Party attendance reports range from 500,000 to 1 Million.
Below are reports for individual cities. They are first ranked by attendance number. Then if more than one city claims the same number of attendees, they are organized alphabetically. If we missed your city’s tea party, please provide us with the info and links to video/photos if you have them.
15,000-20,000+ Range
San Antonio / Alamo: 20,000+ Attendees! (confirmed by San Antonio Police Department using their geometric grid system) Doug’s Blog (Photos)
Atlanta: 15,000 Attendees! Red State – (Police Estimate)
Sacramento: 15,000 Attendees! Free Republic Click on the link and scroll down to see great crowd photos.
10,000-14,999 Range
Chicago: 10,000 Attendees! Hill Buzz (Photos)
Houston: 10,000 Attendees! Poli Gazette (Photos) Great photos of irreverent posters!
Nashville: 10,000 Attendees! An Ol’ Broad’s Ramblings (Photos)
Overland Park, KS: 10,000 Attendees! Nice Deb (Video, Photos)
St. Louis: 10,000 Attendees! Gateway Pundit (Video, Photos)
St. Paul: 10,000 Attendees! Everything I Know is Wrong (Photos)
5,000-9,999 Range
Indianapolis, IL: 8,000 Attendees! Flickr (Badger 23) (Photos)
Madison, WI: 8,000 Attendees! Flickr (Photos)
Phoenix: 8,000 Attendees! Moderate in the Middle (Photos) Including a funny “Debt Star” poster for our Star Wars fans.
Columbus, OH: 7,000 Attendees! Shots on the House (Photos) Wow!
Hoover, AL: 7,000 Attendees! Al.com (Photos)
Tulsa, OK: 7,000 Attendees! (three locations) Green Country Values (Photo) and Roemerman on Record (Video, Photos)
Woodlands, TX: 6,500 Attendees! Woodlands Online (Photos) and Free Republic (Photos)
Fresno, CA: 6,000 Attendees! CentralValleyTeaParty.com (Photos)
New York City: 6,000 Attendees! Berman Post (Photos)
Denver: 5,500 Attendees! Slapstick Politics (Videos, Photos) Lots of videos!
Fort Worth, TX: 5,500 Attendees! Facebook Event: Birmingham/Shelby County Tax Day Tea Party (Photos)
Cincinnati: 5,000 Attendees! RWNJ (Photos)
Cleveland: 5,000 Attendees! Smug Mug (Photos) Over 150+ Photos!
Dallas: 5,000 Attendees! Flickr (d ber1) (Photos)
Hartford, CT: 5,000 Attendees! Webshots (jimban6428) (Photos) Over 100 Photos!
Lansing, MI: 5,000 Attendees! Lansing State Journal (Video, Photos) and The Spartan Review (Photos)
Modesto, CA: 5,000 Attendees! Facebook Event: Modesto Tea Party (Photos)
Oklahoma City: 5,000 Attendees! Whizbang (Photos) Photos of crowd from their first tea party on February 27, 2009 to yesterday’s – A huge difference!
Olympia, WA: 5,000 Attendees! The Olympian (Photos)
Richmond: 5,000 Attendees! WRVA (Photos) Nearly 400 Photos!
Shreveport, LA: 5,000 Attendees! Shreveport Times Photo Gallery (Photos)
0-4,999 Range
Annapolis, MD: 4,000 Attendees Facebook Event: Annapolis Tax Day Tea Party (Photos) These guys were in the rain!
Kansas City, KS: 4,000 Attendees (Downtown) Conservatism with Heart (Video, Photos)
Washington, DC: 3,500 Attendees Mommy Life (Photos)
Salem, OR: 3,500 Attendees Clueless Emma (Photos)
Austin, TX: 3,000 Attendees Meetup: Tax Day Tea Party Austin TX (Photos)
Bellingham, WA: 3,000 Attendees (Please send us a link for photos!)
Columbia, SC: 3,000 Attendees Midlands Connect (Photos)
Ft. Lauderdale, FL: 3,000 Attendees Moms 4 Sarah Palin (Photos) and The Voice Magazine (Photos)
Harrisburg, PA: 3,000 Attendees St. Blogustine (Photos) Scroll down to see the photos. These folks were also in the rain!
Huntsville, AL: 3,000 Attendees Al.com (Photos)
Lakeland, FL: 3,000 Attendees Facebook Event: Lakeland, FL (Photos)
Memphis, TN: 3,000 Attendees Flickr (pinkpigeon) (Photos)
Mobile, AL: 3,000 Attendees Facebook Event: Mobile Tax Day Tea Party (Photos) Over 130 photos.
Pensacola, FL: 3,000 Attendees (Please send us a link for photos!)
Peoria, IL: 3,000 Attendees YouTube (broadsidepatriot) (Video)
Salt Lake City, UT: 3,000 Attendees Notoriously Conservative (Photos)
Jackson, MS: 2,500+ Attendees Brandon Butler (Photos)
Carson City, NV: 2,000 Attendees (Please send us a link for photos!)
Franklin, TN: 2,000 Attendees (as reported by a visitor to our site) Quick Daily Hits (Photos)
Tallahassee, FL: 1,500-2,000 Attendees (as reported by a visitor to our site) (Please send us a link for photos!)
Topeka, KS: 1,500 Attendees Kansas Republican Assembly
Seattle, WA: 1,300 Attendees (Westlake Park)
Melbourne, FL: 1,000 Attendees (two locations) Break Media (Video)
Pittsburg, PA: 1,000 Attendees (Market Square) (Please send us a link for photos!)
Wichita, KS: 1,000 Attendees The Wichita Eagle (Photos) Newstory
Salina, KS: 700 Attendees Salina Journal (Photos)
Las Vegas, NV: 500 Attendees (Please send us a link for photos!)
Marietta, GA: 500 Attendees (as reported by a visitor to our site) MDJ Online (Photo)
Montpelier, VT: 500 Attendees (as reported by a visitor to our site) She’s Right (Video, Photos)
Rutland, VT: 300 Attendees (as reported by a visitor to our site) (Please send us a link for photos!)
El Dorado, KS: 175 Attendees Wichita Liberty (Photos)
Dodge City, KS: 120 Attendees Salina Journal (Photos)
Belleville, MI: 100 Attendees (as reported by a visitor to our site) (Please send us a link for photos!)
More Resources
Tea Party Roll Call One of the more official tallies of tea party attendance.
Free Republic Watch the numbers roll in as organizers report attendance on this discussion board.
USA Freedom Press Another site collecting crowd estimate information.
Instapundit (Photos) Click on the link and scroll down to see amazing pictures of crowds, including overhead photos from all over the country.
Michelle Malkin (Photos) Click on the link to view great crowd photos from all over the country.*
Montpelier, VT 500 participants
Rutland, VT 300
I agree with your initial analysis, the numbers don’t matter much. There were clearly enough protesters to put the Obama administration int spin mode along with the MSM. There were enough protesters to instill fear into representatives who know we will be gunning for them with our ballots. It was a success by any quantitative measure. So for me the numbers don’t really matter. The message was received.
There were 2,000 in Franklin, TN, a suburb of Nashville
I’m not sure if or how often you’ll be updating this list of attendance numbers, but if you do, a Pajamas TV media source shows the downtown Seattle (Westlake Park) tea party had an attendance of around 1,300 people: http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=view-event&event-id=1250
According to PJTV, overall attendance in Washington state was approximately 13,440! Current estimates for the total US turnout is about 551,919 people. However, as of my writing this comment, turnout numbers are still getting verified and reported. So the “official” total U.S. turnout numbers are likely to be greater than what is currently shown.
A 1-In-100 Blogger,
Thanks for the information! We’ll make sure to get the numbers for Seattle added to our list today. We will try to update the list of cities and their attendance numbers as we find out about them. However, it is through comments such as yours that we really get it brought to our attention.
Thanks so much,
Heather
2000 Reported at Carson City, NV.
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_12149428
500 Reported at Las Vegas, NV. (same article)
Even Cavuto through out a few guesses. Check it out http://www.dailykostv.com/w/001171/
so 500,000 turned out and roughly 299,995,000 are simply bemused at your idiocy. congrats:) FAIL!
But do you really want to count all of the obviously racist and foolish as fellow patriots? I certainly did not want my picture taken next to the man holding the sign calling Obama a secret Muslim that was decorated with fried chicken buckets and watermelons. Over half of the people at the party I attended seemed to only care about birth certificates. I was very disappointed by the entire day. It was like the crazier parts of the internet threw up a few hundred people in front of the post office down town.
popurls.com // popular today…
story has entered the popular today section on popurls.com…
Florida Today puts Melbourne at 1000, but there were two different tea parties.
http://www.break.com/usercontent/2009/4/Tea-Party-Viera-Melbourne-Florida-704837.html
This is a link to the video that Florida Today estimated.
Way to pull these numbers out of your butt, or from Wingnut blogs (same thing).
Here’s the reality, teabagger: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/4/16/720524/-Teabaggers-v.-Democracy
Not 10,000 people at the Chicago rally. i think you accidentally added a 0. sorry not sure where you came up with that number, but that’s way over-inflated
that plaza wouldn’t even hold 10,000 people.
Umm, Debt Star is Star Wars, not Star Trek….. Please please don’t confuse the two, makes lots of people & fanboys angry
Couldn’t even read past your first paragraph… under the old administration, rally’s were pretty much forbidden, and that’s why they would get tear gassed and start riots. Under this one, freedom to protest has been restored, so get off your high horse.
very cool to see such huge turnouts around the country- and the news still tries to make us look like a bunch of nutjobs, ha! i met up with a contact at http://www.affluence.org for my meetup and it was very, very inspiring
bcl: Thanks for the comment. I think one difference between the tea party movement and the other recent protest movements you mention is the age of the organizations involved. The tea partiers really began organizing a few weeks ago. When we go to tea parties, the vast majority of people and sometimes the organizers themselves have never publicly protested anything before.
The million man march and the anti-war movement were the result of many of the same left-wing protest groups who’ve been organizing and marching for decades. I mean, regardless of how you think they compare, after just a few weeks, we are talking about the tea party movement protests as being comparable to the Million Man March. I think that’s phenomenal.
Marietta, GA 500+ suburb of Atlanta
http://www.mdjonline.com/content/index/showcontentitem/area/1/section/15/item/131516.html
100 people Belleville, MI.
Original Boston Tea Party:
Pre-party meeting, 16 DEC 1773 – ~7000
Party goers – ~100 (estimates vary and there were three ships attacked)
Population of Boston: ~17000
Population of the colonies (1770): ~2148100
I live in the real world. I was one who argued against the counting of shadows as people during the MillionManMarch. You have to admit, though, that getting 200000+ people to travel to one spot to work together to have their grievance heard is quite an achievement. You also have to admit that there were certainly more people out protesting the war in 2003 and in favor of immigration reform a couple of years ago.
Doesn’t mean such a movement isn’t important to the attendees and that it can’t serve as a rallying point for some. Just that the numbers game doesn’t show this movement as particularly strong at the moment.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party (I know, lame source)
http://www.publicbookshelf.com/public_html/The_Great_Republic_By_the_Master_Historians_Vol_II/colonialb_fe.html
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004979.html
Just curious: Have you ever been to a Libertarian Party gathering? They have been holding tax day protests every April 15th for years. I grew up in Ann Arbor MI and they held their parties while I was growing up (and I am getting to be older than old). Not really a new phenomenon.
That the tea party meme was attached to this a couple of months ago does not invalidate the protest’s history.
I admit, I am not all that clear on what the tea party meme meant (I understand Libertarianism pretty well). Should the government be smaller? Should our warriors be brought home? Is deficit spending only okay when there are Republican majorities? I am just wandering around the map. There were other signs at the rallies, some hateful, racist signs, but I am hoping that they were not the main message.
In any case, nice job trying to gather all the attendance figures in one spot. One nice thing about having a centrally located protest is that counting is easier; participating, probably not easier.
Hey guys, I’ve got a set of pictures from the Jackson, MS party you might like to see. I estimate 3000-4000 there, though the “official” tally said 2500 I think.
http://brandonbutler.christiangaming.org/?p=44
My favorite is the little kid with the “Obama broke my piggy bank” sign. Gives me hope for our young folks, ya know?
Dude, nobody believes the teaparty is a real grassroots movement. In fact, most of us are suspicious of just a small number of organizations behind it. It’s the same ole standard group, riling up the nuts. Plus, all it takes is more wacky conspiracy theory videos to put it to shame. Like the anti-intellectualism that is rampant in the group. WTF?? Why be anti-intellectual. What’s wrong with understanding world facts. If reality has a bias to the left, why argue with everything about it?
Where were you before? Where was the teaparty before? You know why it matters? Because it could have actually done something. Now its just another wedge for people. And at a bad time when racial tensions are going to be aflame.
Anybody who says they were small and didn’t mean much wasn’t there. It was the first time I’ve ever been to a protest for anything. Old, fat, and dumpy looking me,
It was awesome at the Nashville protest, not just for the numbers but for the way it went down. Somebody at the mic was talking about state legislators coming out to join us, somebody started booing at that point but then somebody else cut him off and started a chant “USA!” which everybody started chanting. We had prayer, then sang the national anthem. The only politician who seemd to be the least bit welcome was Marsha Blackburn.
The people are tired. In 2006, Republicans were voted out for being spendthrifts and Democrats were running as conservatives only to hit the beltway to become lapdogs for Pelosi. Obama ran as a blank slate but only after he won did the slate get put in a closet and his real agenda was visible. This protest was about as multi-partisan as it gets.
Let the media and others try to minimalize this. Obama is scared. When he takes time out from playing kissy kissy with Chavez to give a very short sound byte on having a plan to help small businesses and entrepeneurs when there’s never been anything said about it before you know some people are scared.
Just thought this might interest some here: http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2009/04/27/the-myth-of-the-15000/
Largo, Florida was held in a venue that holds 700 (published in their advertising) Gasoline Alley! I was there from 1-3. When I arrived at 1, it was wall-to wall in the entire place and parking was impossible. The flow in the door did not stop. I cannot imagine that it was less than 700 and probably with those who were coming and going, probably many more. I was also at July 4 gathering outside Perkins Restaurant in Clearwater and the newspaper reported 100 and were not even there! There were 20 under the underpass and 30-40 under the tree for shade most of the time. I can personally estimate that there had to be between 400-500 that day and the crowds packing the three lanes headed to and from the beach were highly supportive. Not a single news station, camera or reporter was seen by anyone, which seemed very odd. All I could think of then was media controlled by government. Why would they not even show up? I aw at least 8-10 police cars monitoring to make sure we did not get into the streets. Why would there have been that many for 100 people? Sad commentary to obviously have the press run by the government!
Yes this is great article, looking forward for update.
Thanks, DM. We’re glad to hear Vermont is rallying! Given population size and demographs, those are great turnouts!