Sep 14 2009
Did You Hear About The Tea Party Protest At Work?
Byron York has a great review of Saturday’s Tea Party protests in DC (though I think he low balled the crowd size by a lot). It dove tails nicely with my experience at the protest. All normal family and small business people. Lots of senior citizens outraged and ready to take action. Respectful, but determined to end the DC nonsense. York ends the piece with an important observation:
What did Barack Obama and his party’s leadership on Capitol Hill do to bring doctors and truck drivers together in common cause on the streets of the nation’s capital? More than anything, these people are afraid that the new president is running the country off a cliff. They’re in no mood to remain silent now.
Most definitely. The news media was able to find the one or two ‘crazies’ in the crowd (I couldn’t and I was looking). It felt more like July 4th than any ‘protest’. But it was a protest (with more signs – all custom – than I have ever seen).
So my question for folks is did the Tea Party protests come up in discussion today and this week at work (even if you initiated it)? And what was the general tone?
I think when you’re near the beltway things look a lot different than they do from farther away. I live a long, long ways from there, and one of the reasons I follow politics on the blogs is that in my day to day life, at work, among family, among friends, or at church (Especially at church!) I have *Never* met anyone who really gives a flip about anything that happens in Washington, one way or the other, except for maybe a week or two around election time. It’s sad, but it’s true. Out of the people I regularly run into, I’m the only person I know who even realizes there was a march in Washington.
People here care a little bit more about Austin and what happens there. But Washington might as well be Beijing for all anyone I know cares. And maybe that’s the way it should be.
Of course, this lack of attention is why there will be such a huge backlash if Obama ever does anything that breaks into their insularity in any kind of negative way.
Speaking of crowd size….
You guys need to see Riehlworldview’s post on the crowd size. He has an analysis of the varying reports of crowd sizes compared to Obama inauguration, LBJ Inauguration (thought to be the largest by some), and the 9/12 protest. He has an amazing overlay gif of LBJ’s crowd and the 9/12 crowd.
http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2009/09/912-attendance-metrics-1-million-plus.html
Response to your Q… Liberal [open minded] friend emails… [today, Sept 14]
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“I don’t read your political e-mails. I never do. What I was wondering is did you by chance take a pair of kitchen scissors with you back to Ninilchik [Alaska] when you were here…?
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I offer this anecdote to opine the liberal mind-set… They are [probably] NOT listening… to others… They feel this is THEIR moment in history…