Jon Stewart keeps insisting that his “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” that he and Stephen Colbert are putting on next Saturday is not going to be a liberal or progressive partisan event. It sounds designed to be more like a postmodernist-style meta-rally, a rally making fun of rallies. And yet lots of liberals and progressives are taking it seriously.
Arianna Huffington is offering free transportation from New York to her Huffington Post minions. Oprah Winfrey is paying for a bunch of her followers to be there. The Democratic Club at the University of Pennsylvania is busing in college students. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals will be there in force. So will the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. President Obama has been pushing the event and might show up. More than 200,000 people have posted on Facebook that they will attend.
Never mind that the weekend before the Tuesday election is the most important time for actually campaigning for the people you want elected. From the
Washington Post:
Many conservatives have watched smugly as liberal activists have become caught up in a gathering that will probably resemble a circus more than it does a serious political event and that is taking place on a prime day for campaign volunteers to help get out the vote.
Brendan Steinhauser, spokesman for the “tea party”-affiliated Freedomworks, is a fan of Stewart’s show and recently appeared on “the Colbert Report,” but he said he will be in West Virginia on the day of the rally, knocking on doors for Senate candidate John Raese (R).
“I’d rather have as many liberals in D.C. that weekend as possible, because I don’t want them out doing the phone calls and get-out-the-vote,” Steinhauser said.
via For liberal groups, “Daily Show” rally on Mall, not just for laughs.
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