Muscatine

The total attendance is not as important as the diversity of the crowd: blacks, hispanics, asians, etc., and the message of the rally.    To get a true count one has to count those who not only attended in person, but also those who watched the rally on c-span and on facebook.  Someone who watched it on facebook said that a typical running count was 130,000.  God only knows how many watched it on c-span.  It had to be many more than actually attended.  Did you watch it?  

But, you will only believe what you want to believe,  regardless of the source of the information....so it's kind of pointless to discuss this kind of thing with you.  I've got an idea.  Ask Al Sharpton.  I bet he has a real good idea of the Beck crowd's size!

My reliable source,  Dewey, Cheatum and Howe, estimates that there were 27 Democrats in attendance, and 357,000 Americans.

I find CBS it's to be more trustworthy than anything else I've seen.

I knew the boys would all have fun with this one and I'd never get a serious answer.

hiroad side steps the issue and veers off on the importance of diversity but gives us no clue why it's imiportant or how diverse this crowd was compared to anything else.   He then wants to add iin all the TV and internet viewers as if that were relevant to the question.   No hiroad, I did not watch it.

nedl speculates that Beck can out draw Obama but there's nothing to compare.   President Obama hasn't tried to assemble a huge crowd since his inauguration which drew a crowd of about 10 times the Beck event.   The President also has never had a TV network working 24 hours per day promoting him.

Justcurous throws in a pointless jab at Al Sharpton.

The Fox pulls 420,000 out of thin air.

Darylmaxon picks 327,000, presumably from the same source as The Fox but adds a little jab at Democrats by insinuating they are not Americans.

And the ever reliable Bigsibling gives us two photos with poor resolution, taken from opposite directions, and not covering the same area and not from the same height above ground and offers his opinion that the Beck crowd looks bigger.

It's been fun.