Earlier this month, after a year of relentless publicity, in the heart of one of the most liberal, anti-Republican cities in America, the Labor Day protests at the Republican National convention – which had been expected to draw 50-100,000 people, drew between five and ten thousand. On Labor Day – when most people aren’t working. In Saint Paul. By any rational assessment, the protests – if indeed their intent was to get a message across to the delegates – were an epic failure.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, last week, 13,000 people (according to the TSA) showed up to see Mac and Sarah at Blaine Airport. The meeting had had one week’s notice, and was held in the middle of a busy workday in a hanger at an obscure airport in a g-dforsaken north-suburban airport halfway between Minneapolis and Winnipeg. Republicans have jobs; we don’t usually go to rallies or demonstrations at all<\/em>. And yet 13,000 people showed up at an event where they were expecting less than 2\/3 as many.<\/p>\n On Saturday on the NARN show, I spent an entire hour taking calls from people who’d been at the rally. It was the third-busiest day I’ve ever seen on the phones for the Volume II NARN show (rivalled only by the days Terry Schiavo and Pope John Paul II died). To call the callers “enthusiastic” would be hopelessly understated. And to call them all “Traditional movement Republicans” would be inaccurate as well; I got calls from apostate Democrats, from people whose first rally in fifty years the Blaine event had been, from people who’d gone from planning to stay home on election day to volunteering for the McCain Campaign.<\/p>\n