The Numbers Game

***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.*