Twelve Thousand Invisible Teabaggers

Speaking of crazy garbage in West Chester this week, the teabagger crowd held a counter protest for the President's Labor Day speech over the weekend and claimed four times as many people showed up as saw the President.

Well, kind of...you see the Cincinnati Enquirer is having a little difficulty locating 12,000 of the 18,000.

How many people were at Cincinnati Tea Party’s rally Saturday at Voice of America Park?

The short answer: We don’t know. Somewhere between 6,000 and 18,000.

Crowd estimates are notoriously difficult and politically charged. Organizers and some other media used the figure 18,000, citing a figure given by Butler County Sheriff Rick Jones - an outspoken conservative and Tea Party supporter who spoke at the event.

The reporter who was there went with a more modest estimate, saying “more than 6,000.” That was based on his judgement and some interviews with local police, though the article didn’t make that clear.

Getting a little crazy out there. You'd think the teabaggers were full of something other than tea.

I attended the AFL-CIO union event, and I went to see Obama speak. Some basic facts that deserve attention:

1. The AFL-CIO distributed, I heard, about 10,000 tickets. The space was not nearly as expansive as the Voice of America park. The limited number of tickets was due to space. So even if 18,000 had wanted to see Obama speak, it would not have been possible. After all, the AFL-CIO does this picnic annually, and Obama was coming to their event. He was naturally restricted by space constraints.

2. Due to the threat of bad weather, the event was moved to a covered amphitheater. That space had even more limited seating, which I presume to be 4,500. I got in line almost two hours before the scheduled speaking time because my son really wanted to see the president. Others I know got cut off later when too many people had come through for the limited seats.

So really, both events had similar numbers, and Obama's was in a much smaller venue on a morning where it rained. But hey, some folks will do anything to prove they have bigger...numbers...than Obama.