Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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This is What Democracy Looks Like

Rich Galen

Monday August 30, 2004

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From New York City
The Republican National Convention

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On the big protest march in Manhattan yesterday: The organizers promised 250,000 people. Didn't happen.

Tom Raum's Associated Press mid-afternoon lead was: "Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched past a heavily fortified Republican convention hall on Sunday�" The NY Times' website late afternoon headline was similar: "Tens of Thousands Join Protests Against Bush in New York City"

By early evening, the NY Times had decided to combine all the attendees at all the protests and rallies, anyone walking through Times Square without convention credentials, and every passenger in every car crossing the George Washington Bridge, and so they could, at about 5:30 pm, write on their website the headline "Hundreds of Thousands Join Protests in NY."

And the AP changed its lead from "tens of thousands" to "more than 100,000."

Whatever the actual count, the march was plenty big and the marchers seemed to be in pretty good humor as opposed to the angry, just-this-close-to-violence-lynch-mob we had been led to expect.

The Mullmeister was out amongst 'em. Not exactly amongst them, but next to them. "Next to them" being defined as: Behind four levels of barricades with a line of police officers between them and me. There are a couple of Mullfotos of the activity on the Secret Decoder Ring Page today.

One group marched past chanting: Hey, HEY. Ho, HO. George Bush has got to go!

Zero for style points. "Hey, hey; ho, ho" chants have been around since the sixties. In forty years you have to come up with something more clever, such as what another group was chanting:

THIS is WHAT demOCracy LOOKS like! THIS is WHAT demOCracy LOOKS like!

A group which comes up with a snappy syncopated chant like that gets full marks from me.

More importantly, that IS what democracy looks like. A bunch of people - maybe as many as two million by the time the Washington Post finishes counting - being permitted to make their point, peacefully yet forcefully, in the full view of the very people they are opposing.

Notwithstanding protesters whose number was the equivalent of the entire population of mainland China, the political news for President Bush is quite good as he moves into his convention on a fairly significant upswing.

All of the polling remains within the margin of error, but in just about every one of them President Bush is leading Senator Kerry by about three points. Better to be slightly ahead within the margin of error than slightly behind.

I know you know this, but a poll which shows President Bush leading by three points with a margin of error of 3.5% means he could actually be TRAILING by a half a percentage point. It also means he could be LEADING by 6.5%.

Sen. Kerry did get a small bounce out of his convention, but it was a bounce - not a bump. Like all bounces what went up, came down - and his poll numbers dropped way faster than the balloons at the Fleet Center.

Even if President Bush gets zero bounce, bound, or bump he will still come out of the important Labor Day polls at least statistically tied with Sen. Kerry and it is not unlikely he might be ahead slightly outside the margin of error.

Watch Fox at shortly after 9:00 AM each morning for the Rich & Elaine show from Madison Square Garden as we will debate the previous night's activities.

On the Secret Decoder Ring Page today: The University of Michigan's definition of "Margin of Error," plus some dandy Mullfotos from in and around Madison Square Garden and a really good Catchy Caption of the Day.

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