The Rally to Restore Sanity and/ or March to Promote Fear promised to be a rally for people who were too busy to go to rallies, but according to a CBS who commissioned Air Photos.Live to count, an estimated 215,000 people were motivated to attend.
The estimates have a margin of error of plus or minus ten percent.The last time any rally compared to this in size was the Glen Beck “Restoring Honor Protest” held over the summer, which brought in 87,000 people.
And while both rallies had their own set of strange costumes, the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear definitely brought out a different demographic.
The last time America's youth, the MTV generation, rallied on the National Mall in these numbers, were protests for the Iraq War in January, 2003, when tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands protested on the National Mall, as part of a worldwide protest against the war.
“My Dad's part of the tea-party. He teased me for coming today”. Debbie from Tampa Florida told ABC News. She came because a friend at work invited her. “I could not pass the opportunity to come.”
John Stewart and Steven Colbert had been talking about the rally for the last month, but even in the morning of the rally people were not sure what to expect. By noon, people were pouring into the National Mall, for something nobody was quite certain what exactly it was about.
They came from far and wide, by some accounts from every recess of the country, some brought in by buses, some flew. Many carrying comedic signs, the crowd was so large people were sitting in trees, on street signs, and atop of at least one ambulance.
“They probably didn't care how many came just as long as it was one more than Glenn Beck rally”. Sadie Clark who came from New York.The crowd was so large, many decided to take refuge in local bars and watch it the rally on television.
The one demographic missing, NPR who had asked it's employees not covering the rally to not attend.For the first 30 minutes it was difficult to audio was very low, people were wondering are you going to be able to hear anything?
“You have to expect your not going to hear that much at a rally this size” Barbara Young explained. Barbara was the minority at the rally, a veteran protestor, who had experienced both the rallies of the 60's and today's events.
The actual speeches from Stewart and Colbert didn't occur until two and a half hours in of the three-hour rally, in the meantime, the audience was entertained creating an enormous wave, an awards ceremony for reasonableness and spreading fear, and plenty of music to go around.
Yusuf Islam, formally known as Cat Stevens performed “Peace Train”, followed by Ozzy Osborn’s “Crazy Train”, and then too top it off, there was a performance of “Love Train” by the OJ’s.The timing of just three days before 2010 midterm elections was highly political.
But the question on whether or not the rally will actually drum up support for democratic candidates, or if this rally will simply be remembered for the huge turnout, and comedy that ended up preaching to the choir remains.
