Recently several diaries and comments concerning the size of the crowd at the One Nation 10.2.10 rally have used the estimate of 175,000 in its official march press release. As of today, One Nation seems to have backed off that estimate to state that it doesn't know whether or not the crowd was greater than Beck's 87,000.
My wife and I went to the rally and it was immediately obvious to us that the crowd was smaller than that shown by aerial photos of Beck's crowd. Reportedly a satellite company claims that One Nation had 87,000 in attendance, which would equal Beck's more or less. The Associated Press says that our crowd was "less dense" (that's for sure!) than Beck's. One commenter, who was at both rallies, claims that Beck's dwarfedOne Nation.
Look, the rally was great. It was important, and it was necessary. I'm sure all who were there came away more enthused than ever; I know I did. We should do more of this. And to the extent that attendance matters (and I think it does, a great deal), it is true that One Nation was not nearly as widely advertised as Beck's.
But if attendance at One Nation reflects the Left's enthusiasm as compared to the Right's, than yes, we have a substantial enthusiasm gap and that spells a lot of trouble.
So let's accept the truth - the bad guys showed up more than we did - and work from there. Let's try harder to reach those who always have something better to do, or don't see the point, or don't care, and make them get off their duffs and get, if not to a rally, than to the voting booth at least.
It is true that for evil to triumph it is sufficient that the good do nothing. I would amend that to point out that in our binary system, in order for evil to triumph, it is only necessary for good to do a little less.