Desperate Conservatives Fake Claims Of Poor Turnout At Ohio Obama Rally

The attacks from the right wing on Obama have become increasingly lame. Today’s attack is compounded by their inferiority complex over the decreasing numbers of people who have any interest in their views or candidates. It is possible they can win, as occurred in 2010, due to a reflexive vote against the party in office due to a poor economy, but that should not be mistaken as a real interest in conservative politicians.

This weekend’s attack line in the right-wing blogs, along with a continuation of the totally fabricated claim that Obama planned to place the blame on others if his successful raid to kill Osama bin Laden had failed, is that few turned out to his rally in Ohio. They are posting pictures such as this:

Looks sort of empty in the upper stands. They fail to point out that this picture was taken before the Obama rally began, and fail to post pictures showing far more people in the upper stands during the rally:

This sure looks more impressive than those pictures of actual empty seats around Mitt Romney at Ford Field in February.

PoliticusUSA has more pictures and points out:

The truth is that President Obama drew 14,000+ in an 18,000 seat arena. It wasn’t a sellout, but it was about 13,500 more people than Romney’s largest crowd in Ohio. As the Washington Post pointed out Romney has drawn crowds of several thousand during the campaign, what they didn’t mention is that most of his thousands were bused in Mormon college students, but Obama’s crowd today was exponentially bigger than anything Mitt Romney has drawn this year.

The right wing media was trying to level the playing field. They want to erase the memory of Mitt Romney giving his big economic address to 80,000 empty seats at Ford Field in Detroit. The problem they have is that even though right wing media does, the photographs don’t lie.

Update: It wasn’t just several major conservative blogs spreading this claim. Crooks & Liars point out that George Will was doing the same on This Week. David Plouffe responded to this faux controversy by saying “we’re happy to have that debate.”

Besides the two conservative blogs running this false claim linked to above in the second paragraph, more examples can be found here , here, here, here, and here. I just thought I’d throw in some more links after receiving one of those frequent comments which are immediately removed– a conservative posing as a liberal claiming I lied here as none of the conservative blogs he reads has said this. Obviously not ever conservative blog is repeating this false attack line, but so many are that it is impossible to believe any claims that anyone who has looked at conservative blogs has not seen this. One reason for comment filters is so that we don’t waste time being distracted by conservatives utilizing tactics such as these when the time can be better devoted making arguments for liberal principles and debunking conservative falsehoods.

15 Comments

  1. 1
    Sheila Friend says:

    RT @RonChusid Desperate Conservatives Fake Claims Of Poor Turnout At Ohio Obama Rally #p2 #p21 #topprog http://t.co/on8Gwha5 // Gggrrr. >:-(

  2. 2
    docholly says:

    Desperate Conservatives Fake Claims Of Poor Turnout At Ohio Obama Rally #p2 #p21 #topprog http://t.co/S4HDRONP

  3. 3
    Sheria Reid says:

    Desperate Conservatives Fake Claims Of Poor Turnout At Ohio Obama Rally – http://t.co/ublhbPTA (via #sociablesite) http://t.co/ublhbPTA

  4. 4
    datechguy says:

    Hmmm sounds to me like you are confirming that the president in his official campaign launch failed to fill that 18,000 seat stadium by a full 4,000 seats with months to prepare for the event.

    This is the same president who could draw 35,000 in the same state just two years before.

    Apparently you can argue one photo vs the other but you can’t dispute the fact that the president isn’t the draw he once was, by a half.

    Thanks for confirming the story for us.

  5. 5
    Ron Chusid says:

    That’s a pretty lame way to try to spin this in your favor. The claims of poor turn out are debunked and the dishonesty of those making this argument is demonstrated.

    I wouldn’t expect high turn out in May when Obama hasn’t faced a primary challenger and most of the media attention has concentrated on the Republicans. The more meaningful comparison is to Romney, with Obama drawing several times the numbers which Romney is able to draw.

  6. 6
    Sttbs73 says:

    Desperate Conservatives Fake Claims Of Poor Turnout At Ohio Obama Rally @treywareshow stop lying! http://t.co/fZt0eFhZ

  7. 7
    Just Ann American says:

    Desperate Conservatives Fake Claims Of Poor Turnout At Ohio Obama Rally @treywareshow stop lying! http://t.co/fZt0eFhZ

  8. 8
    Liberal Effects says:

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  9. 9
    AgressiveProgressive says:

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  10. 10
    Weapons Grade Stupid says:

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  11. 11
    SpreadTheWord says:

    RT @LiberalEffects: Desperate Conservatives Fake Claims Of Poor Turnout At Ohio Obama Rally – http://t.co/rwmNo2O3

  12. 12
    Danny K. says:

    RT @LiberalEffects: Desperate Conservatives Fake Claims Of Poor Turnout At Ohio Obama Rally – http://t.co/rwmNo2O3

  13. 13
    lulu says:

    why, after all the searching, is there only ONE picture with the stands full, which could have been ANY event. please, someone has to have pictures of the Obama campaign kick off!!!

  14. 14
    Ron Chusid says:

    You sure didn’t search very hard. Many more pictures are available, including in the link to more pictures in this post.

  15. 15
    Horace Brown says:

    Desperate Conservatives Fake Claims Of Poor Turnout At Ohio Obama Rally – http://t.co/Jmjgfzto http://t.co/Jmjgfzto

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