Wednesday, May 21st, 2008...8:41 pm
They Really Only Count If They Are For Us
The folks over at Sonoran Aliance have a warning for the John McCain campaign after they saw this shot of a weekend Barack Obama campaign rally that drew (depending on what report you believe) between 75,000 and 80,000 people:
Don’t worry guys, Mandy Grunwald would probably tell you that they don’t look like voters.
Which, in a roundabout way, brings me to a related topic. The new conservative meme, as put forward by Robert Knight of NewsBusters, is that it really wasn’t Obama that attracted this crowd, it was the Decemberists. And of course being NewsBusters, there is a liberal media conspiracy covering up this important fact.The Decemberists are popular for an indie act (they beat Calexico and DeVotchKa in terms of sales, but who doesn’t?), but I have my suspicions that they were not the draw. As good as these guys are, they aren’t a stadium filling act. They’d probably be happy to play to tens of thousands on a regular basis; it would certainly provide Alidah Lennon a steady supply of mandolin strings.
So, let’s say a popular band that sells out big venues, gets regular MTV play and has a listenership outside of grad students opened up for a candidate. According to Knight’s thesis, they’d get a heck of a lot more than 75,000. Funny thing, we actually had something like this in Arizona in 2004 when the Foo Fighters played a John Kerry rally. The draw for that: 30,000. And that was in a bigger community.
My point is that despite the entertainment, the real draw is the candidate. If Obama didn’t have some sort of hold on these folks, they wouldn’t have come to see him even if he was backed by the reunited Beatles (and I’m including John, George and even Stu and Pete…). Once again, Obama’s opponents want to pooh pooh his popularity by saying that his supporters are fickle and naïve. Well, keep that up guys. That worked so well during the primaries, we’ll see how that works for you come election day.
3 Comments
May 21st, 2008 at 8:58 pm
I guess I’m all for being “fickle and naive”.
May 21st, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Plus, aren’t they from Portland? I am guessing that Portland people can go see the Decemberists at least as often as we get to see Calexico.
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:43 am
I love the Decemberists and all (even though Colin Meloy tends to sing a bit too much about Whales and myths and stuff), but I can’t imagine them bringing that many people out. By the way, search out a 17 minute song/ep called The Tain if you want to get a sense of his songwriting genius.
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