Bloomberg, Lib Blogs Pwned On Latest McCain Hit

A Bloomberg News item that sat atop Memeorandum all day Saturday causing many liberal bloggers and additional alleged mainstream media outlets (see First Read, Washington Monthly, TPM and others) to accuse the McCain campaign of inflating event attendance numbers not only doesn't hold up to close examination, it contains one factual error so laughable as to make it look like the work of a 1st year J-school student. Pardon me while I spoil all their fun.

Bloomberg relies on only two events to assert their misguided claim.

Until Palin, 44, joined him on the campaign trail, McCain, 72, had limited his political events to smaller town hall meetings and rallies of a few hundred people. His Democratic rival, Barack Obama, an Illinois senator, routinely draws thousands of people to his speeches, a phenomenon McCain has tried to use to his advantage by labeling Obama, 47, a celebrity.

That changed on Aug. 30, at Palin's first big public appearance after her nomination. The McCain campaign said 10,000 people showed up at the Consol Energy Arena in Washington, Pennsylvania, home of the Washington Wild Things baseball team.

The campaign attributed that estimate, and several that followed, to U.S. Secret Service figures, based on the number of people who passed through magnetometers.

``We didn't provide any numbers to the campaign,'' said Malcolm Wiley, a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service. Wiley said he would not ``confirm or dispute'' the numbers the McCain campaign has given to reporters.

While it may seem trite to the casual observer, to the fact checker, editor or professional journalist, it helps when you publish such a wrong-headed smear if you are at least able to get the name of the actual venue correct. For example, "Consol Energy Arena" only produces 105 Google hits as of now - all linked to Bloomberg, because there really is no such place.

Once I figured out the actual name of the venue, "Consol Energy Park" the resultant 39, 100 Google hits made it much easier to debunk Bloomberg's rather sad attempt at passing Journalism 101. Sorry ... they failed, if for no other reason than that egregious error. And from there it only gets worse.

Tell me, does anyone really believe the rather precise number reported by a local journalist below sounds like one of those casual, perhaps inflated numbers a campaign throws out?

The Secret Service tallied 9,800 people had walked through metal detectors prior to McCain's arrival by bus.

I thought not but let's not stop there. Now that we know the venue's true name, no thanks to Bloomberg - how about asking them, the actual gatekeepers to this turn-styled event what it is they reported:

John Rich of Big & Rich played for a John McCain for President Rally Saturday, August 30 where a record one day attendance of 11,000 filled the ball park.

Damn that John McCain! Someone really should tell his campaign to stop selling itself short like this! Why claim 10,000 when clearly the most official count of all the official counts that can possibly exist says 11,000. Drat! Oh well, opportunity lost, I suppose. But let's move on to Bloomberg's second gem, shall we, given we're having so much fun and all?

McCain aide Kimmie Lipscomb told reporters on Sept. 10 that an outdoor rally in Fairfax City, Virginia, drew 23,000 people, attributing the crowd estimate to a fire marshal.

Fairfax City Fire Marshal Andrew Wilson said his office did not supply that number to the campaign and could not confirm it. Wilson, in an interview, said the fire department does not monitor attendance at outdoor events.

In recent days, journalists attending the rallies have been raising questions about the crowd estimates with the campaign. In a story on Sept. 11 about Palin's attraction for some Virginia women voters, Washington Post reporter Marc Fisher estimated the crowd to be 8,000, not the 23,000 cited by the campaign.

``The 23,000 figure was substantiated on the ground,'' McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said. ``The campaign is willing to stand by the fact that it was our biggest crowd to date.''

Presumably we now know two things: no fire marshal would provide a count for the event and the WaPo said there were 8,000 in attendance, making the McCain folks outrageous liars, I suppose.

Put aside that the Fire Society (with some inside knowledge of these things) was apparently awaiting such a count: "The Fairfax City fire marshal did not yet have an official crowd count when the hour-long rally concluded at noon, but it was clear that many thousands covered the grassy hillsides spilling down to a large outdoor stage...." they eventually got a count from, of all people and places, a fire marshal talking to the New York Times:

The Fairfax City fire marshal this afternoon estimated the crowd at 15,000, their numbers clearly evident as they covered the grassy hillsides and spilled down to a large outdoor stage.

We know that isn't the campaign talking - they offered 23,000 and the NY Times actually cited their source - the same source Bloomberg assured us wouldn't talk. Fifteen thousand? While not 23,000 - it is double the WaPo number (8,000) Bloomberg used in their, at the very least, now inflated and factually incorrect smear of the McCain camp.  Now let's look at another original report and bring this home exonerating the McCain campaign fully as appropriate given all this - Media General News Service at InRich dot com may be the only outfit that got it right:

Citing a local fire official's crowd estimate(23,000), McCain's campaign said the event set a nonconvention record for his campaign.

Let me break this down, particularly as I'm living in, of all places, Fairfax right now. A "fire official" can be basically anyone walking around an event in one of those funny hats Fred Thompson didn't want to wear and there were likely several companies called in to cover an event of this scope. If a member of the McCain campaign engaged one of them in conversation and they casually opined that there were perhaps 23,000 in attendance at the second event, they have every right to come before the media and make the claim they did without being called liars, whether the media likes it or not. And they also have the right to stand by it as "confirmed on the ground," which they are doing.

As for the media - between the NY Times and WaPo, they've put forth nothing like a single official number for the count - is it 8k, or 15k? And as far as Bloomberg is concerned, given that they couldn't even get the name of the venue correct in the first event, is anyone really interested in what if any number they might care to toss out?

I think not.

And while they'll likely not report this - it's just fodder on some blog, after all - it happens to be more accurate than anything the MSM has managed to cobble together on the matter thus far.

How Bloomberg held onto all that money paying dolts like this to produce news may be the only mystery in all this as far as I'm concerned. Don't they have editors at that place, or what?

Dear: the reporters on this story: Lorraine Woellert in Washington at lwoellert@bloomberg.net; Jeff Bliss in Washington at jbliss@bloomberg.net.

Class dismissed!

Comments

[Spartan112]

So the facts are that they're inflating numbers, but not as much as reported so that only counts as "sort of lying", right Dan? Like Sarah only "sort of lied" about opposing the bridge to nowhere?

[BobInStamford]

Did the Mother of the Year talk about her brave journey to Iraq? I'm sure little Tigger is very proud.

[TCO]

Supposedly people running the shuttle busses said it was 27,000.

[Andy B]

Dan, When have you ever seen this amount of scrutiny about an Obama event where they bribe people to attend with rock concerts?

[Lala]

Of course, McCain-Palin could always bring in bigger crowds if they had free concerts and free bratwurst as a lure. Or, they could have Rev. Al Sharpton bus in some homeless like he does in New York.

http://www.blogsforjohnmccain.com/sarah-palin-speaks-raucous-rally-crowd-carson-city-nevada-video-91308

Sarah Palin Speaks to Raucous Rally Crowd in Carson City, Nevada - Video 9/13/08

"The Obama campaign is clearly rattled about Palin's crowds. They are trying to say the crowds have been overestimated. Keep "whistling past the graveyard," Obama! Saying it doesn't make it so!"
Trackback URL for this post:
http://www.blogsforjohnmccain.com/trackback/2631

[Philip McDaniel]

Crowd estimating is never exact. Estimates are made from the size of the crowd area and average density of the people in that area -- often times taken from photographs. Here there are ample photos to do that sort of estimating. It looks like there were other means as well. Was there lying about the crowd size as some suggest here and elsewhere? Highly doubtful. I have not see evidence of that on either the Republican or Democratic side in the past. On the other hand, attempting to downsize a crowd size to offset some perceived advantage does occur. Nevertheless, those who participate in such practice do so at their peril: A failure to accurately assess an opponent’s size and strength can lead to defeat, both in military and political campaigns.

[joeb]

Just for the record The Washington Post did not print the full text of Sarah Palin's acceptance speech the day after. Since when did newspapers stop printing the full text of important speeches? Oh, that's right The Washington Post did not feel it was important. I wrote The Post about this and they at least had the decency to print my letter about this oversight this weekend. By the way the morning after I found the full text of the speech right away on Yahoo News. I think it was an AP story.

[southdakotaboy]

The msm is done after this election even if Obama wins. From now on somewhere aound 60to 70% of the country is just going to assume that they are making stuff up to push a cause.
The funny thing is that they are so blind to the damage that they have caused themselves. You would think with the plunge in revenue and circulation that they would start to wake up to the problem.
If Obama wins look for these failing left wing news sources to start getting direct support from the Gov't.

[rightwingprof]

Linked.

I was at the Consol rally, and I don't know how many the stadium holds, but it was full, and that doesn't count the in and outfield full of people.

[Fred Beloit]

Atlantic rag/mag hires notorious far-left photographer Jill Greenberg to take cover photo of McCain. You will have to put lipstick on this pig. She is a photographer after all.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/09/13/lib-photographer-admits-making-mccain-look-sinister-mag-cover

[Obamessiah™]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa........HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

HA!

HA!

The teenagers who comprise the left have been reduced to saying, "Mac isn't drawing as many people as he says he is" and wiping away their frustrated tears of outrage.

Do you buffoonish dumbasses ever listen to yourselves? This Obapo campaign gets more laughable by the day, and the liberals asshats who see nothing wrong with him getting teabagged by Ayers are now whining about crowd numbers.

Obamyo is a clownshoe and his believers need to get their pointy skulls trepanned.

[Fred Beloit]

At last. Suspicion, that some trolls are paid agents for the left, are shared by others. Also pictures of trolls, some of whom visit here regularly.
http://www.plnewsforum.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/39618/

[rockmom]

A friend of mine who has been active in Fairfax County Republican campaigns for 30 years told me that they gave out 25,000 tickets to the McCain/Palin rally. He was at the local HQ helping them give out the tickets. You had to have a ticket to get in.

[bse5150]

The 'bridge to nowhere' and the trooper firing arguments are tired. The bottom line is that she stopped the bridge and the trooper mess means nothing to me. Palin supports gun rights, less government, lower taxes, strong defense, drilling for oil in the US, and hopefully will slow the abortion holocaust - a veritable pillar of modern day Liberalism. I'm a Conservative and am proud to say I've donated twice to McCain/Palin, as well as once to McCain's compliance fund, and once to the GOP and that's SINCE Palin was announced as running mate. That's how fired up I am. Will be donating again very soon.

[bse5150]

The 'bridge to nowhere' and the trooper firing arguments are tired. The bottom line is that she stopped the bridge and the trooper mess means nothing to me. Palin supports gun rights, less government, lower taxes, strong defense, drilling for oil in the US, and hopefully will slow the abortion holocaust - a veritable pillar of modern day Liberalism. I'm a Conservative and am proud to say I've donated twice to McCain/Palin, as well as once to McCain's compliance fund, and once to the GOP and that's SINCE Palin was announced as running mate. That's how fired up I am. Will be donating again very soon.

[Howard]

OBAMA = BETRAYAL
Obama supporters are foolish to think that he will never betray them.
Obama was a close friend of Pastor Wright for TWENTY YEARS.
Obama threw Wright under the bus for personal ambition.
McCain would not betray his country even after 5 years of torture.
You can put lipstick on a traitor, but he's still a traitor.