Waking the Sleeping Giant: Nationwide Tax Protest Tea Party Attendance Exceeds 1 Million
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on April 17, 2009
By Vicki McClure Davidson * Frugal Café Blog Zone
2009 Tax Day Tea Party Protest, Phoenix, AZ
It’s taken two days to compile and verify numbers supplied by hundreds of people across the country, but zowie—it looks like tax protest tea party attendance, with photos and police counts to corroborate, exceeds 1 million Americans. And more numbers are still coming in from smaller communities.
Statists, liberals, and the MSM are lowballing the attendance numbers and still marginalizing those who attended. Some Republicans still don’t get it, but then, hey—they’re still struggling to figure out who and what they are, exactly, as a party. So, their lack of understanding the grassroots tea party revolution isn’t a surprise.
Michelle Malkin wrote today in her post, The Million Taxpayer March, “Before the grass-roots Tea Party movement took them by surprise, Beltway GOP strategists argued fervently that the party’s traditional focus on taxes and spending had become outdated. The re-branders pitched their own expansive ideas to replace the anti-tax-and-spend agenda and inspire new voters. These included Gingrich’s ‘green conservatism,’ David Frum’s proposal to raise carbon taxes, and open-borders Republicans’ plans for alternative forms of amnesty. Newsflash: Eco-zealotry and in-state tuition discounts for illegal aliens didn’t bring out thousands of first-time activists on the streets. Stay-at-home moms weren’t up all night making signs that read ‘Tax me more, please!’”
Also from Malkin: Another Republican booed by Tea Party protesters
Here’s the story from WorldNetDaily:
1 million attend tea parties in 50 states, ‘Obama has awakened a sleeping giant’
By Jerome Corsi and Chelsea Schilling
© 2009 WorldNetDailyAn estimated 1 million Americans participated in at least 1,000 tea parties, according to reports by organizers tabulating the nationwide numbers, with documented protests held in 50 states.
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform told WND, “The Obama administration has awakened a sleeping giant.”
Tax Day Tea Party national event coordinator Amy Kremer told WND she has confirmed that more than 850 parties took place. She has at least 100 more reports in her e-mail inbox that have not been posted.
Asked how many people attended the events, she responded, “I would estimate it at over 1 million. I’m waiting on more numbers to come in from organizers right now. I can tell you it is absolutely over 750,000 right now.”
The largest protests occurred in Atlanta, Ga., with 15,000 participants. As many as 10,000 protesters participating in Sacramento, Calif., and Overland Park, Kan., according to data compiled by Americans for Tax Reform on more than 207 tea parties.
Americans for Tax Reform has established an Internet page on the group’s website where organizers of tea parties can submit attendance estimates to be included in the running tally.
Michael DePrimo, special counsel to American Family Association President Tim Wildmon, told WND that AFA’s tea party website, Tea Party Day, had 2,031 confirmations that tea parties were to be held in as many cities.
“Since yesterday, we have had 394 cities give us reports, many with photographs, about the tea parties that were held,” he said. “We have not been able to get all the information up. We expect more to come in as the days go by.”
Glenn Beck reported yesterday on his Fox News program that official estimates of the participation in the Tea Party held in San Antonio, Texas, reached as many as 20,000 people.
The Glenn Beck show broadcast on Fox News live on April 15, from the Tea Party held at the Alamo in San Antonio.
“The establishment in Washington, D.C., is terrified,” Norquist said. “There were no such demonstrations four months into the administrations of Democratic presidents Carter or Clinton.”
Norquist told WND that the Obama administration was taken by surprise by the nationwide protests because the administration had calculated increased government spending was supposed to be the popular part of President Obama’s economic stimulus plan.
Instead, Norquist said, the tea parties held in every state on Wednesday proved Americans nationwide are demonstrating in anger and disappointment against Obama administration plans for massive deficit spending.
“Imagine what happens when President Obama, House Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid begin to pay for their ’spend-fest’ with higher taxes and inflation,” Norquist said.
Kremer said the mainstream media have completely neglected their duty to accurately report on this nationwide movement.
“It’s amazing that the mainstream media is reporting it the way that they are,” she said. “It’s just crazy. It’s basically just going to come down to us. We’re now reporting it ourselves because they are not reporting it accurately.”
Many say the mainstream media attempted either to ignore the protests altogether or characterized tea partiers as disgruntled Republicans unable to accept that “they lost” the 2008 presidential campaign or as “rich taxpayers” unwilling to pay their fair burden of taxes.
However, Kremer said she is constantly receiving reports from organizers about the movement’s resounding success.
“I think it was an absolute success,” she said. “We want to send a message to them: We hired them; we can fire them. They work for us. They seem to have forgotten that.”
She continued, “If it means we have to go after every incumbent in office from now until 2012, we will do that. But the American people are tired of sitting by, and they are starting to step forward and take notice.”
Worthwhile tea party-related articles and posts:
NoBama: White House Says Obama ‘Unaware’ of Tea Parties
Chris Muir, Big Hollywood: The Knights of O (Day By Day)
The Crowbar: Tea Party Snark III: Working-Class Schlubs, Abnormal Teabaggers
Mark Steyn, OC Register: Tea Party animals not boiling over
Vets On The Watch: Millions Gather In Protest
Alfonso Rachel, Big Hollywood: Has Janeane Seen This?
Talk Gwinnett: My View of ‘The Million Taxpayer March’ – The Atlanta Tea Party
Knee Deep in the Hooah!: Isn’t it funny?
Michelle Malkin: Massive: Tax Day Tea Party USA; Updated
Peace and Freedom Global Future: Tea Party Million Taxpayers’ March: A Lot About Not Trusting Government (Or The Media)
Eject! Eject! Eject!: THEY DID IT FOR YOU. NOW DO IT FOR THEM
Moderate in the Middle: Update: Arizona Tea Party- Phoenix
Gateway Pundit: Dem Leaders Say Tea Party Protesters Are “Neo-Nazis, Militias, Secessionists and Racists”
Andrew Breitbart, Big Hollywood: Big Hollywood Crew Joins Tea Party Protest
Chris Muir, Big Hollywood: Brewing Tea
Sister Toldjah: Attempts at delegitimizing the Tea Party movement have failed
Jim Blazsik: MSM babies and others reactions to the Tax Day Tea Party
Tax Foundation: Poll: Tax Code Complex, Needs Reform; Federal Incomes Taxes “Too High”Andrea Shea King, Big Hollywood: American Tea Party Anthem Singer Lloyd Marcus: “This whole thing is Rush Limbaugh’s fault”
Daily Woof: Spreading the Word on CNN Douchebags
Soulpsuperstar’s Blog: My rant about the TeaParty movement
About the author
Do you have any non-right wing, non conservative lobbyist sources for the accurate count. If the count is truly over 1 million than it shouldn’t be any problem for you. So far through scattered sources of law enforcement and chamber of commerce’s, the numbers didn’t even break 100,000. Even Malkin said 250,000.
A legitimate question, Syntax, and one that I, too, have pondered.
The total US number you’re quoting from Malkin/Pajama TV is old. This information below was posted on PJTV about two hours ago; note the guesstimation of 800k to 1 million in Paragraph 2 and the url for the not-finalized PDF of attendees:
Sources that say the numbers “are not even breaking 100,000″ are laughably ludicrous. I was at the Phoenix rally, and while the numbers from different sources vary, 8,000 to 10,000 for total Phoenix attendance are being repeated the most, but I don’t think the numbers have yet solidified. One liberal AZ source that I read on Wednesday night said there were only a “few hundred” total at the Phoenix rally. No way. You can see that’s nonsense from the news coverage, aerial video, and available photos. Either that person counted just the early birds before the rally began or flat out lied.
I did an informal head count two hours before the rally began and it was about 500-600 at that time. By rally time, the amount of people had exploded into the thousands. You couldn’t even see the grass. A half hour into the rally, my sister had to stand in line for the bathroom. There were more than 60 people in line to use the four johns there. People had to park 1/2 – 1 mile away. I sat on a bench away from the huge crowd and counted newly arriving people from one intersection across the street from the capitol building. There were about 30-50 people a minute (that was at about 6 pm) crossing the street there (and there were two other intersections that I couldn’t observe). I believe there were 18 rallies in the state of Arizona, with Phoenix and Tucson being the largest. So, for just our one state, I believe 25,000 to 30,000 in total attendance is indeed likely. Atlanta had the most nationwide. The last I had read they had 50,000 estimated, but that was yesterday. There were huge turnouts in Texas and California, yada yada.
The criteria for totals aren’t going to be consistent, although I’m confident that efforts will be made to try to make them as consistent as possible. People at my rally were arriving as late as 7 pm. Some folks were leaving because it was getting cold. Do you do a “freeze-frame” count at one precise time or a count every half hour and then average the number of people? Haven’t a clue.
All the numbers are still coming in, so no definitive grand total is at hand. I have absolutely no idea what liberal lobbyist would have been in agreement to be in charge of counting for this grassroots effort. And frankly, since we all have seen recent “funky math” with the DNC and them photocopying signatures to count the same one three times, I’m leery of how they would be “creative” for an event that obviously is not liberal. Do you have a suggestion as to a non-right wing, non-conservative lobbyist source that you believe would do this for free next year and that you would find to be reputable and honest? If so, I would love to send that info to the folks here in AZ that worked behind the scenes at the Phoenix protest. A company that is nonpartisan and would do this for free, or for donations (not tax money, obviously) would be ideal. But I was just one of the thousands of people in the crowd and I’m a hobbyist blogger, so I have absolutely no influence nor do I have “my hand on the pulse” of the national numbers. No one has those yet.
Remember, this nationwide event was not “headed” by anyone. Yes, different organizations and radio stations helped promote it and lent a hand, but most, if not all, were pretty much organized by regular volunteer folks with no lobbying background nor “tea party” experience. So, for small communities in AZ or other states that had only 1,000 or so in attendance, they may not yet have finalized their numbers and submitted them. I’m sure the methods of submittal will be improved upon in the future, but for now, we need to understand the logical reasons for the delays and likely clumsiness. No tickets were sold, no RSVP’s were issued, no sign-in sheet was used. So the numbers are there, just more time consuming to extrapolate. We had police helicopters overhead, and I believe they may have been used to count the crowd at different intervals. Small communities would not have that resource.
Good question. The numbers are looking strong based on what I’ve read today, but next week (or the week thereafter) will be less guesstimation than it is today. Remember, the tea parties were held just two days ago. So we’ll all need to be patient.
Again to Syntax: This sentence you wrote: “If the count is truly over 1 million than it shouldn’t be any problem for you. ”
I’m not sure what tone you intended to take since your overall query was legitimate. Again, I’m just a regular person like you. I don’t get paid for this blog, I’m not on any payroll for a lobbyist or conservative group or anything political. Nor was I a volunteer at the tax protest. I just attended and reported on what I saw. I’m a wife, mom, and engineering technical editor who goes to work every day just like you. And I blog social & political commentary on those things that matter to me most. Also, because I’m too chicken to hang glide and I don’t like doing arts and crafts.
Originally, this blog and accompanying website was for frugality issues and helpful money-saving tips, but has evolved over the past few months as I became more upset about the waste of money in Washington and the dismantling of our Constitution. In the spirit of Old World cafes, a lot of political discussion occurred in cafes back then, so we’re still adhering to the original philosophies of the site and blog. I hit the bleepin’ roof (ask my husband) when GW Bush signed TARP I. I was so angry over that and the outrageous amount of money (which has since become dwarfed), and I was a staunch supporter of his on many unpopular issues. But that outrageous first bailout bill Bush signed really enraged me. No accountability, no oversight, it was stupid and wasteful. So when people say, “Why are you so upset about Obama when Bush spent a lot?” they obviously assume that conservatives are OK with waste sometimes? Stupid assumption. No way… it makes my blood boil no matter the party affiliation – waste and frivolous spending are inexcusable from our elected servants. And that is why the tax protest tea parties were so important to so many people who feel the same way. To let Washington know that we’re now watching them and they need to change their ways or risk being voted out.
I earned a degree in English and formerly was a registered Democrat for many years. In some ways, I’m still considered moderate or liberal by my more conservative friends. But that’s just on isolated issues. I’m now a conservative, although I was liberal through my earlier years. I was very much into social service activities and helping those less fortunate become self-proficient, and still am. I currently help support three children in Africa, write to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, was a Girl Scout leader for 7 years, served on PTA, was a Sunday School teacher, make loans to KIVA organizations in third-world countries, worked with the impoverished Yaqui Indian community here, and a lot of other volunteer activities. Never was much into politics, though. Until now.
I love my country, but I think I took America for granted for too long, just like most people. I’m trying to make up for that now. Especially since the trillion-dollar-bills will plunge us into more debt than we have ever been in; that scares the crap out of me. And it should everyone.
Anyway, your statement “it shouldn’t be any problem for you” sounds kinda cool, like you think perhaps I’m important in some way with political machinery or tax protest. Nope. Well, I am important, but only to my husband and kids. Sorry to let you down.
I plan to keep up on this tax protest attendance information as it continues to unfold.
I’d love to know more about you whenever you have a few minutes to divulge.
Just found you from a link from Big Hollywood…Thanks for the info about the numbers. I am now a fan of yours!
We need a national tea party at Washington DC. Obama will be aware that there are tea parties. There will be a head count for sure.
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