What More Might One Need to Know Than This?

You may recall that a few days ago the McCain/Palin ticket was caught lying about how many people had attended a rally of theirs in Virginia Beach. Foolishly they had not bothered to check their own "estimate" of 25,000 people, against the physical capacity of the building, which was only 16,000--to say nothing of vetting it against the local Fire Marshall's estimate of the true attendance figure, which was only 12,000. At the time the mainstream media's subdued coverage of the story might have been considered generous toward McCain/Palin, specifically because of what a full airing of the mismatch might have said about their support in the crucial, military-town corridor of this irretrievably crucial state.

Which begs only the question of what the mainstream press will do about this.


On Saturday, October 17th, in St. Louis Missouri, Barack Obama held a rally for what the city police department estimates was over 100,000 people--in a state that was never supposed to be his. That's 100,000 people, my friends. Not 10,000. Not 50,000. Not even 75,000. For purposes of context, consider that Mr. Bush carried Missouri in 2000 by fewer than 79,000 over Al Gore, and four years later won the Show-Me State by fewer than 200,000 despite running against a re-animated corpse.

As for what this might mean for the fate of Election 2008, it's easy to over-state the barometric aspect of a single rally--but not as easy as some political analysts would have you believe. If Obama can get 100,000 people in St. Louis, and McCain is speaking to 4,000 empty seats in Virgnia Beach, there can be little doubt as to whether Joe The Plumber could or couldn't save McCain, now.

He can't.

Dave O'Gorman
("The Key Grip")
Gainesville, Florida