Today Matt Drudge is pushing this piece that links to Breitbart:
This is from President Obama’s campaign kickoff in Ohio yesterday. The image apparently came from the Romney campaign directly. Here’s what Breitbart says about it:
Barack Obama launched his campaign in unspectacular fashion today at Ohio State University, the largest college in the crucial swing state. A photo posted to twitter by Mitt Romney’s campaign spokesman Ryan Williams reveals sparse attendance. The above image, according to Williams, was taken during the President’s first official campaign speech.
But as PoliticsUSA points out, that photograph was apparently taken pre-rally. They have supplied numerous pictures and even a video showing a much different story.
Still, I didn’t buy it 100%. Instead I decided to search out a better image and I ended up finding one. This is a panoramic image, but I decided to crop in and focus on one area, which is the same area as the photo being pushed by Breitbart.
If you click on the image for the full sized one you can clearly see that the seats in the Breitbart/Romney photo are empty, yet the seats during the rally, in the photo from the Obama campaign, those same seats are full.
Estimates put the rally attendance at 14,000 in Schottenstein Center at Ohio State University, which typically holds 20,000.
Speaking of attendance, here is how Breitbart pushes the numbers:
According to the Toledo Blade, the venue for Obama’s rally seats 20,000 but “there were a lot of empty seats.” Comparatively, Obama drew a crowd of 35,000 at Ohio State when he campaigned for former Governor Ted Strickland in 2010.
The official Barack Obama Tumblr boasts a figure from ThinkProgress that 14,000 attended the event–70% of the stadium’s seating capacity.
It’s interesting that Breitbart says that Think Progress is saying 14,000 attended. Now look at the original Toledo Blade article linked to by Breitbart:
Appearing today before some 14,000 gathered on the campus of Ohio State University, President Barack Obama sought to reignite the “Yes we can!” passion that helped carry him to election in 2008.
The very article linked to by Breitbart puts the crowd at some 14,000. Not only that, it appears in the second paragraph of the article. The capacity statement is in the 9th paragraph. Breitbart is trying to dismiss the fact that even their source for the occupancy is saying that the crowd was at 14,000.
These are the lies and distortions we will continue to see by the right as the general election kicks into full gear.
Luckily for our side we don’t need to lie. Here’s when Romney spoke at Ford Field in Detroit:
No pre/post rally photo there. That is Mitt up there speaking to a very empty stadium. This is a memory the Romney campaign has tried tirelessly to erase, but we do remember.
And for comparison, here is actual video from Obama’s rally yesterday:
Yeah – not seeing an empty venue there. All I see is another total fail by Drudge/Brietbart/Romney.