* The first rule of organizing is to pack too many people into too small of a room. The Sears Center in Hoffman Estates holds 10,000 people. But Right Nation 2010 organizers said only 5,500 tickets were sold. Conservative blogger Warner Todd Huston estimated attendance last night at
just 3,000.
I e-mailed a reporter friend of mine who was there to ask him how the attendance looked inside and he responded: “Lots of empty seats.” So, I asked him if he could snap a photo of the crowd. Here’s his response via e-mail…
No pictures of the audience allowed or credentials revoked and you are escorted out. My blackberry wouldn’t be able to get it in the dark here and my photog just told me he didn’t want to get thrown out.
Kinda harsh.
The reporters didn’t seem to react unkindly to that silly rule, however. Media coverage ignored the empty seats and focused on the event itself and the protest outside. Here’s a roundup…
“We’re doing well in the polls, but we want you to think we’re down,” Brady said, before referencing Chicago’s history of vote fraud. “There’s one city that might steal four or five points from me on the night before the election. . . . We need your help.”
[Breitbart] screamed that they must be union members who had been duped into protesting.
“Do you even know what you’re protesting?” he shouted. “Who’s with SEIU [Service Employees International Union]? What union are you with?”
Breitbart rejected the protesters’ claims that they came from various religious organizations. He pointed to an anti-Beck sign with a union bug on the bottom.
Challenging one man carrying a “Beck lies’’ sign, Breitbart said: “Name me one lie he’s told.” “Probably hundreds,” the man responded.
“How is Beck a coward?” he challenged another protester with a “Beck=Coward” sign. The protester did not answer.
“We are 40 days from fundamentally changing America,'’ Beck said. “. . . What the Tea Party movement wants is an end to out-of-control spending, an end to the insanity, an end to the growth in government that is gobbling everything up.'’
He also ridiculed first lady Michelle Obama’s campaign to get people to eat healthier snacks like apples or carrots.
“Get away from my french fries, Mrs. Obama,” Beck warned. “First politician that comes up to me with a carrot stick, I’ve got a place for it. And it’s not in my tummy.”
