I took a look at the map and the clock and decided not to go to Fort Atkinson’s tea party, opting instead to make Appleton’s. I’m too tired to offload the pics off my camera and make sure they’re halfway-decent, but I’ll crib off my Tweets:
– There ended up being somewhere around 3,000 people, as the Fox Banquets parking lot ended up being jammed up.
– No current politicians were up at the microphone, but we did get a brief appearance from former state treasurer Jack Voight.
– After the opening invocation, we got a history lesson – Since the Brits spent themselves out of money, they looked at the American colonies as a piggy bank. The colonists responded with the original tea party and ultimately the Revolution.
– Speaking of history, one of the speakers (didn’t have a working recorder, so I don’t remember his name) pointed out that at one time, each party had a low-tax champion, and that both parties are currently ignoring their legacies.
I do have numbers from a couple of other Wisconsin Tea Parties:
– Superior – 100
– Eau Claire – 300
– Wausau – “hundreds”
I was hardly alone covering the Madison Tea Party:
– Lance Burri with the pic dump.
– Randy Hollenbeck (do not miss the two-page photo gallery)
– Denise of Finding a Balance
– Fred Dooley (first is his personal blog, Real Debate Wisconsin, second is the MacIver Institute)
– Christian Schneider
– MadisonConservative
Revisions/extensions (11:13 pm 4/15/2009) – Paul Socha has a good write-up and a heap of pics. Somehow I missed him.
Great job covering things for those of us who couldn’t make them today. The twitter updates were beneficial for doing highlight posts.
Not a problem. Live-blogging does seem to be my specialty :-)
3,000? Not even close. 1,000 at the most. I was there. And I wasn\’t accosted either. That was cool.
I’m pegging it at 1,500? Agreed that 3k is high. Does someone have a Hiqh-resolution picture of the event?
[…] the Blogosphere’o’Cheese: Steve Eggleston at No Runny Eggs has a roundup. Steve was the stud of the Tax Day Tea Parties yesterday: after Madison’s, he […]
Regarding the estimate, that 3,000 number came from the organizers who had a view from the slightly-raised stage. The crowd looked to be 40 people wide by 80 people deep (which, if there are no gaps, would be 3,200).
Just heard on Belling’s show (WISN for those outside Milwaukee) there were at least 1,500 signatures on the banner they were sending to Congress, and I can assure you that not nearly everybody in attendance signed it.
so what was it like , besides the number of people? Was it held outdoors? I drove to another appointment, by that area about 5:10 but went west from Oneida, north of the bridge, south of College, and didn’t know it was to the east.
What did people’s signs say? Were there any police taking down license numbers? What happened onstage? Are there photos anywhere of the event?