It is obvious that the 2009 crowd is thicker. In 2009 they probably had 1500-2000. The 2010 had less people, even as reported by Colleen to the Projo.

Last year the GA could hear you from inside, this year they couldn't. Not like it matters, they are not listening anyway.

If you copy and paste the photos into a blank MS word document and then adjust the brightness and contrast on the 2010 photo you can seen the significant visual decrease in attendance numbers at the time the photo was taken. MS word also allows you to zoom in over 400% to see the detail.

The Providence event was smaller this year.
The Boston event was bigger.

Shows the death spiral that Rhode Island is in as the few remaining producers flee the state or give up hope, but it's a wash from a national perspective.

>>Shows the death spiral that Rhode Island is in as the few remaining producers flee the state or give up hope, but it's a wash from a national perspective.

FWIW, if I still lived in RI I'd have attended the Providence Tea Party yesterday, as I did the two in 2009.

But since I now live in the Southeast, yesterday I attended the one in my new city of residence. : -)

Same reason I wasn't there, Tom.

TomW,

How is the local property and school taxes down in FL?

The City and County of Honolulu just dropped my property taxes to $100 a year because of my age and no property tax on cars, trucks, motorcycles or boats plus my retirement is exempt from state income tax also sales tax is 4.5% in Honolulu and no winter heating bill (lowest temp is 60 in winter at night) plus no humidity requiring A/C; no hurricanes, tornadoes and lightning storms (HI been hit by 2 hurricanes and 2 tsunamis since record keeping by NWS) and all land-line telephone calls to mainland are unlimited and free to the lower 48-states!

I attended last year's April 15 TP rally and I didn't attend this year. I was busy this April 15, and besides I now believe that this year is when we get behind the state and federal candidates that we want to go to Smith Hill and Washington and start to fix the two messes!

Let's not neglect another segment --- although its size, I won't hazard to guess: Some number of the people who were motivated to attend last year's rally have since increased their participation, by running for office, taking up other types of activism, so this event wasn't needed as a direct opportunity to express frustration.

I wasn't able to make it because I'm in a different position at work, than I was, but it was absolutely a factor that I'm so much more active now than I was then.

So if the one Leftist idiot was the only anti-Tea Party agitator present, I may conclude that OTL, Stuart, Russ and Phil did not have the cojones to show up?

Internet samurai they may be, but cowards and frauds in the real world.

>>How is the local property and school taxes down in FL?

No bargain, I'd say, but certainly less than RI. Without being able to directly compare properties, my "seat of the pants" estimate is that they are 15-30% lower than RI.

But also note that there's no state income tax. Period.

And one can see that gets something in return for tax money -- the roads here are incomparably better than the terrible, Detroit-like roads of RI.

And, as far as I know, this state's public sector unfunded pension liability (on a per capita basis) is a fraction of RI's, which bodes well for the future of taxation here.

The RINO Governor just vetoed the bill to eliminate teacher tenure and put them onto a merit pay system. Odds are the next Governor won't be so beholden to the teachers unions, so FL public education may greatly improve over the coming years -- and while Gist is trying, odds are that before long she'll be stopped by the General Assembly.

RISP says that the crowd never exceeded 800. They're wrong. We had 3x that many. We are going to take back America for white Christians! They know we are rising!

Eriche, you are very lost. The Tea Party has nothing whatever to do with race or religion.

Monique, pretend if you like. But we will prevail. We have a president who lacks a soul. The people are rising against him.

No, we've got a leftist commenter who lacks guts and an argument.

I had a slightly different take; I attended both 2009 and 2010... but stayed for the entire rally. Overall, I think 2010 was about 10% larger than 2009. 2009 peaked much later, as people got out of work around 5ish... so it matters when those pictures were taken. 2010 seemed to be steadier - it started off ahead of last year, but didn't grow as much until the end. Plus, there seemed to be more turnover in 2010, which pushed my estimates higher. In a way, all the MSM threats of violence worked against the tea party - a number of people showed up because they were curious and expecting some ruckus, and when there wasn't any, they left... oddly disappointed, it seems.

Overall, I think there was slightly more people in 2010; they were just distributed differently.

If I had a big pink sign that said "Infiltrator" I would point it at the so-called Eriche.

There's so much paranoia going on that I don't think actual infiltration is even necessary. These people eat their own.

>>The Providence event was smaller this year.
The Boston event was bigger.

That's pretty funny. So what Dan is telling us is that the 100% corporate funded event which paid Palin the big bucks....in a city which has millions within driving distance.....is somehow relevant, while the actual "peoples" rally in RI (more grassroots) is dismissed by him as a failure because RI gave up and sucks.

Hardy, har har.....hah hah. Funny stuff, Dan!

Let's tell it like it is. Without the big mouthpiece of Fox Entertainment sending all their pimps along and spending every last moment pushing all these "grass roots" rallies, it wouldn't have even been anything last year.

"No, we've got a leftist commenter who lacks guts and an argument."
Posted by Andrew at April 17, 2010 2:48 PM
__________________________________

"If I had a big pink sign that said 'Infiltrator' I would point it at the so-called Eriche."
Posted by BobN at April 17, 2010 3:36 PM
________________________________

This a new one on me. I have never been called "leftist" before. I reckon I might at a meeting of the NAZI party or the like; but it is still something new to me.

My political identity is a "social conservative." I share some of the libertarian ideas which the rally speakers emphasized but not all.

I attended the rally and felt very comfortable there. I saw many people who share my views and had a great time discussing ideas. I recognized lots of people from my circle who were there solely because of Obama and never would have attended otherwise.

Lacking guts is to attack me and not what I say. Lacking guts to is pretend one goal when you have another. I am not PC; fine object if you like to make the liberals happy.

>who were there solely because of Obama and never would have attended otherwise

Bingo! A recent poll showed Tea Party participants have a very favorable view of GW Bush - in fact, they have as large of a favorable view as the general population has an unfavorable view.

Executive Summary...as before....

The Tea Party is largely made up of people who can't get over the fact that they lost a fair and democratic election.

Extrapolating from there, we can see that these are the people who enjoy authoritarians...dictators, totalitarians and whatever else you want to call the "old order".....and they are very unhappy when The People instead want democracy.

They are against all Taxation WITH Representation, but with the policies of the worst abuser of human rights and executive power in decades...the neo-cons and Cheney/Bush.

The bulk of what you have posted is not the discussion of ideas, it is hiding behind anonymity, so you can lie without consequence about what you claim other people have said. But you won't be able to produce any real names or verifiable quotes associated with your version of what other people said, because you are making it up.

(And if you haven't been called "leftist" before, it's probably because the people you hang out with refer to themselves as either "progressives" or "beyond ideology").

Andrew, I assume your intelligence and that you can find very popular and important stories in the major media yourself!

"At rallies, Tea Party supporters often nod to President Bush’s role in creating the deficit. Yet in the poll, 57 percent of them view Mr. Bush favorably — about the same percentage in the general population that has an unfavorable view.

In the new world led by President Obama, Mr. Bush is apparently a figure these new populists can pine for."
"3 in 10 do not think he was born in this country."

And this is pretty funny - Glen Beck lovers!
"Tea-partiers are disproportionately attached to, and perhaps influenced by, FOX News. And they are particularly enamored of Glenn Beck. Nationally, just 18 percent of people have a favorable opinion of Beck (the majority have no opinion whatsoever about him). But most tea-partiers do. Do the math, and you'll find that 59 percent of those who do think highly of Beck consider themselves a part of the tea-party. This is, in fact, the single biggest differentiator of any of the items"

A bunch of nuts, IMHO. Look, if Beck is viewed favorably by only 18 percent of the population - and 59 percent of the Tea Party loves him - that is an extremely telling statistic!

I rest my case. The Tea Party is really the Fox News party! Of course, they too will dump the tea party soon..as soon as it stops being profitable.

We used to call that a "use job". But, heck, with views like yours, you can't afford to be picky about your associations and brothers in arms.

Stuart,

I don't assume that you are able to find major stories in the media, because I described one to you in a previous thread (the Obama administration assassination order against Al-Awlaki), and your response was to deny its existence and insult me. And of course when you were proved wrong, you skipped past ever acknowledging that your ideology had blinded you from being able to see basic facts. You are also the one taking as gospel truth the word of an anonymous commenter, who has taken the name of a domestic terrorist as his handle, and who can't produce a single real name associated with other people he says share his views -- but you'll be the final judge of what's true and important!

As always, your moral vanity is causing you to project your problems onto others.