Crowd estimates as a political thermometer

Posted at 8:49 AM on January 23, 2006 by Bob Collins

Rallies at the Capitol seem to happen all the time. Most of them are ignored, a few -- like Sunday's anti-abortion rally -- are a good chance to take the temperature of various movements to see if political "clout" (whatever that is) is waxing or waning.

The coverage of yesterday's rally seems to indicate a groundwell to limit or overturn legalized abortion. And maybe that's true; abortion opponents have certainly made legislative gains in the last few years.

But on this issue and with these opponents, I can't tell the nature of the fervor based on the rallies, or more specifically, the attendance at those rallies. The numbers simply aren't adding up to what the eye sees.

A read of the organizers' estimates suggests twice as many showed up at Sunday's rally as did in 2003. Is that true?

Here's 2003, in which the crowd estimate was 3,000.:

Here's 2004, in which the crowd estimate was 2,000.:

and here's 2006 ( I don't think MPR covered the 2005 rally), with the crowd estimate of 6,000 people.

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