Tiny Tea Party Rally vs. Large Progressive Rally: Which Gets More Beltway Ink? - The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/blog/162434/tiny-tea-party-rally-vs-large-progressive-rally-which-gets-more-beltway-ink Leslie Savan
July 29, 2011
Yesterday, an American Dream Movement rally demanding a debt deal that “protects seniors and makes corporations and the rich pay
fair share” drew a significantly larger crowd than a Tea Party rally a day earlier that essentially demanded the opposite. Both were held on Capitol Hill, both focused on the same ginned-up debt ceiling “crisis,” but you’d be hard-pressed to find the Beltway media noting the difference in crowd size—or even reporting on the progressive rally at all.
Related Topics.Human Interest Social Issues the Tea Party Express .Wednesday’s conservative rally, organized by the Tea Party Express, was a bust: only about fifty people showed up to see presidential candidate Herman Cain and hear Senators Jim DeMint, Rand Paul and Mike Lee speak. “It had all the makings of a big time Tea Party rally,” Politico wrote. But “by the time the senators had spoken there were still fewer than 50 tea partiers in attendance.”
But then, Thursday’s American Dream rally—organized by MoveOn, Rebuild the Dream, AFSCME and AFGE, and featuring speakers like Van Jones and Representatives Keith Ellison and Jan Schakowsky—clocked in an estimated 450–500 people, according to the coalition. Oddly, though, as of twenty-four hours later, Politico didn’t mention it. CNN.com, meanwhile, talked up the Tea Party rally both the day before it took place and afterward—when it spun the measly crowd (and its own pre-event notice) by writing: “Don't be fooled by the tiny turnout at the Tea Party rally on Capitol Hill Wednesday. The conservative movement doesn't much need rallies anymore. November 2010 changed all of that.”
That’s a handy excuse. And maybe that’s why CNN.com didn’t bother to mention the American Dream rally at all. What could it have said?: “Don’t be fooled by the larger turnout at the progressive rally on Capitol Hill Thursday. The liberal movement desperately needs rallies. November 2010 made it so”?
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