Prairie Weather

How many at the Mall?

There doesn't seem to have been all that much interest in how many attended the rally yesterday.  Commentators are steering clear of estimates.  The closest I've heard to my own estimate is 150,000.

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Wrong!  Apparently CBS has come up with the "official" number:  215,000.  Were those extra 65,000 people standing in the shadows, under the trees?

Good signs

From New Yorker photographers at the Stewart-Colbert rally

On the Mall with "hipsters"

Joshua Green didn't want to go, was dragged there by a visitor, seems to have had a good time after all, had a few comments.

-DC Metro expected smaller crowd, got blindsided, gave up and let people ride free

-Rallygoers' main object of contempt--mild, detached contempt--was Tea Party, not GOP

-Signs a lot cleverer than your usual rally

-But, with exceptions, usually less so than authors seemed to think

-Comedy Central viewers MUCH better spellers than Tea Partiers

-Illustration of several of the preceding, sign reading: "Will Spell-Check Tea Party Signs for $5"

-Curiously large number of people dresses like Charlie Chaplin (did I miss an in-joke?)

-Pretty sure 75% of young-ish crowd had no clue who Cat Stevens was

-Ozzy sounded surprisingly good, considering

-Genuine, non-ironic Democratic signs were scarce. Saw a couple "Obama Cares," little else

-Mood was heavily ironic, slackerish. "Enthusiasm," such as it was, didn't seem voting-directed.

-Didn't get the sense too many people understood the purpose of rally (me either).

-Or care (meaning "all still had a good time").

Only complaint:  Joshua Green doesn't have a clue what a real "hipster" looks like.  The people I saw looked positively heartlandishly unhip.

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When I saw the crowd -- briefly -- on CSpan, my first thought was, "This is what the teapartyers once liked to imagine they look like but don't."  In other words, educated, cheerful, kindly, independent-minded, and well-behaved.

Some conservatives get it

Andrew Sullivan is one of them.  He "remains fiscally obsessed with balancing our books. We'll happily credit either party for making the biggest effort to get us there."

...The record of the past couple of decades, especially the last one, leads me to believe that the greater threat to America's fiscal future lies with the GOP.  But the Dems have yet to show any spine on entitlement cuts. Seeing how health insurance reform's Medicare cuts fare will also be a revealing moment. 

What he doesn't mention is the timing.  Procrustean urges to avoid all debt during an economic downturn are self-destructive.  That's something neither side seems to get unless they're reliable economists.

With the notable exception of members of the Austrian School, pure libertarians, and some others, there is remarkably little disagreement among professional economists around the world that in times of downturn, short-term fiscal stimulus and public spending can reduce the effects of a downturn. ...James Fallows

It was just a good old party for liberals: harmless, fun and it batted Beck right out of the park

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert had their big day in the nation's capital Saturday, taking their roadshow of dueling mockery to a big stage set up on the national Mall. For the people who were there, what happened onstage didn't really matter so much, because I'd guess that at the very least--and this is a conservative estimate--half of the people there couldn't hear or see enough of it to really know what was going on.

They weren't really there for the politics. They were there for the party. This was a spectacle, bottom line. The message was mixed, mostly because of the audio...but also because the stage show seemed to alternate between appeals for sanity, general humor, music, and criticism of the media.

As Josh Green points out, no one was really sure what the purpose of the whole thing was.

The immediate takeaway: The crowd was massive. Way bigger than the Glenn Beck rally in July.

The Mall was packed for about five blocks, and, past the point where the big, central grassy areas were roped off, a thick crowd of people milled around or another four blocks or so. The crowd spilled off the mall for at least a block to the North and South; people lined up, wielding sarcastic signs, along the steps and terraces of the Smithsonian museums.

The sound of helicopters echoed off the big white museum buildings; sirens sounded frequently from the streets around the Mall; people chatted amongst each other; a drum circle formed around 12th St. (the stage was at 3rd); and all this meant that the rallygoers couldn't really hear what was going on, much less see it on the two jumbotrons at each side of the stage. The atmosphere was partyish, not serious. At all. ...Chris Good, The Atlantic

Chipping away at any remaining constraints on money spent on campaigns

... Just as an election marked by hundreds of millions of dollars of undisclosed political spending comes to a close, the Supreme Court will decide as early as Monday whether to review another major challenge to campaign finance disclosure laws.

A suit filed by SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission takes issue with rules forcing like-minded individuals to register with the federal government and form Political Action Committees (PACs) if they want to pool their funds and buy ads that support or oppose particular candidates.

In March, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled the government could not limit contributions to groups like SpeechNow.org, but upheld the requirement that the group become a PAC in order to spend money on political advertisements.

If the Citizens United ruling is any indication, the Supreme Court could view the PAC issue differently, and advocates for tougher campaign finance laws are urging the high court to uphold the D.C. Circuit appeals court ruling.

“The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC was an endorsement by eight justices of the value of political transparency, and we hope that the Court maintains its strong support of campaign finance disclosure in the SpeechNow.org case,” said Tara Malloy of the Campaign Legal Center.

SpeechNow defends its challenge to PAC rules by arguing that laws requiring likeminded individuals to form the committees subject them to onerous rules and regulations and infringes on free speech.

“In a free country, citizens should not have to register with government bureaucrats and comply with onerous regulations just to speak,” said Bradley A. Smith, a former FEC chairman and chairman of the conservative Center for Competitive Politics. “Americans should not have to disclose broad, non-campaign activities to the government, and they should not have to get the government’s permission to disband.” ...The Hill