March On, My Friend

The Morning After, I struggle to find the words to fully explain the significance of what happened yesterday at the March on Washington.  The day belongs to the thousands of volunteers who joined together to organize this marvelous day.  To those who worked so hard, and to every single American that marched: Thank You.

The crowd was HUGE.  Any reporter that claims thousands, or even tens of thousands of attendees was either not there or was willfully misreporting the significance of the event.

The House Democratic Leadership predicted up to 2 million on Friday, presumably to knock down the actually attendees the next day.  The Daily Mail estimated two million the day of the event.  NBC estimated “hundreds of thousands.” What I know for sure is that there were at least hundreds of thousands of peaceful demonstrators that descended upon Freedom Plaza, jammed Pennsylvania Avenue from there to the Capitol for over 3 hours, swamped the West Front of the Capitol, and flooded down the Mall and various side streets.  Our sound system, fully capable of reaching well over 100,000, was completely insufficient.  According to the Washington Post, “a sea of people surrounded the Capitol reflecting pool, spilling across Third Street and along the Mall.  The sound system did not reach far enough for people at the edges of the rally to hear the speakers onstage.”   I also know that the size of the crowd that showed up to march up Pennsylvania Avenue almost immediately overwhelmed Freedom Plaza and completely shut down that whole section of the city.  It was glorious chaos, made even more wonderful by the well-behaved, respectful and happy crowd.  No fingers were bitten off, no windows smashed.   I walked the March surrounded by fellow Americans that had come from all fifty states, overwhelmed by indisputable evidence that Americans uniquely treasure their freedoms, and will rise up to protect them no matter the cost or inconvenience.  Check out this amazing Time lapsed video of the crowds marching from Freedom Plaza.

After 3 sleepless days, a bomb threat that emptied our offices on Friday, and experiencing one of the most overwhelmingly best days for economic freedom and individual liberty I have witnessed in my life, from the stage I cited ABC news estimating the crowd at the March on Washington at 1.5 million.  I also said “with all due respect to our friends in mainstream media, we need our own independent head count.  Trust but verify.”  With a dead IPhone, I had been shown tweets from a number of different folks behind the stage citing the ABC estimate.  They didn’t say it.  I regret misrepresenting the network, as their coverage that day was fair and honest.

I suppose the error harms any future run I might have made for President.  Judging from some of the nasty-grams that have been left on my office phone this past week, this will not disappoint some.

Speaking of bogus tweets, check out this whopper.  David Schuster posted yesterday that “Freedomworks says their dc demonstration attracted 30,000 people. Park police official says that is being ‘generous.’”   Come on Dave, get past your denial.

I hope that the Angry Left wants to continue to have a debate over how many hundreds of thousands of frustrated Americans took the extraordinary effort, time and resources necessary to commit themselves to attend the largest gathering of fiscal conservatives ever in Washington D.C.  I also hope they continue to dismiss every one of us as “fake,” “AstroTurf,” “Un-American,” even “domestic terrorists.”

As the Most Interesting Man in the World might say: “March on, my friend.”  And so we will.  Post-9-12 March on Washington, there are now only two types of elected officials: Those who heard our message of less government and more freedom, and those to be held accountable.