>On Monday, October 18, 2004, at 09:21 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>As for the turnout, I'd say that the police officer quoted by Manny
>>Fernandez and David Nakamura in their Washington Post article is
>>accurate: "Million Worker March in the Washington Post" (October
>>18, 2004,
>><http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20041018/023530.html>).
>>It was in the same league as the first anti-war march on D.C. after
>>the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
>
>In the same league so far as size is concerned, it sounds like. But
>the conditions were much more favorable for this one, eh?
The first time, external conditions were about as unfavorable as you could imagine. This time, the organizers themselves assured a tiny turnout by picking a date less than twenty days before the election.
As for the black-led thing, on Nov 2, African Americans will vote in huge numbers for Kerry. My father-in-law, who teaches at Michigan State, reports that black student organizations have been registering black students so effectively that there aren't any left to sign up when he goes knocking on dorm-room doors. But that kind of black political activity doesn't seem to count.
Doug