I was at the largest rally I had ever seen in Chattanooga. The President, Vice President, Marsha Blackburn, congressmen and senators were all in attendance with nearly 12,000 supporters in a full arena with thousands outside.
People waited for hours to get into it. He and the vice-president spoke for an hour. The event was unprecedented. Our congressman spoke.
All I see reported was a tiny bit of his speech and nothing of the difference between Marsha Blackburn and Bredesen.
Bredesen with his tiny group received over three times the coverage.
Jim Folkner
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Jim, you raise an excellent point, although I commend Channel 3 for their excellent coverage of the Trump visit and WGOW for their professional, and in my opinion, neutral coverage of the president’s visit.
Speaking live to the gigantic crowd model became Trump’s bread and butter in the campaign. The Democrat model began with Hillary in early 2016. She used a series of rather quiet and carefully orchestrated “round table” discussions with a handpicked group given prearranged questions in early primary states. These sessions were filmed, released to friendly reporters and then they appeared on the nightly news. They got equal coverage to Trump’s bombastic and loud speeches to huge crowds.
It allowed Hillary to avoid embarrassing questions about her email and Benghazi issues. She was also building her stamina for later events where she would have to walk and stand for long periods of time. It’s no coincidence she is back to sitting in big puffy chairs for her meet and greet events now.
Mr Bredesen occasionally uses that model, including parroting Clinton and Obama talking points in his campaign ads. He sits at a table pretending to eat lunch while the camera rolls or holds modest size meet and greet events.
His appearance here was orchestrated like Oprah Winfrey’s at Morehouse. No matter what you hear about the crowd size, Bessie Smith with tables and Morehouse’s auditorium do not compare with the huge venues Trump uses in any shape, size or capacity.
Most of those Sunday for Bredesen were Democrat leaders, donors and party faithful and media. And it did get the same kind of coverage from some channels as the President. But the difference was Trump, Pence and Blackburn were speaking to over 12,000 cheering people both inside and outside. These were regular, everyday folks from all walks of life, not like the party insiders with Bredesen.
The attendance at Pence’s speech in Dalton was 3,000 plus while “hundreds” stood in line to get tickets for Obama’s speech according to WRCB’s news report. Morehouse auditorium only has 300 seats but some networks didn’t bother to mention that. And in Macon, a few miles down the road Trump spoke to thousands at the airport. I haven’t seen any audience size estimates but the pictures show masses of people crowed into a hanger and outside on the tarmac for as far as one could see.
We will now see which candidate and their message brought the most voters to the polls. And it’s still not too late to say aloha to Phil.
Ralph Miller
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How can there be 12,000 people inside an arena that has a maximum capacity of 10,995? I pulled that right off Google. So, anyone can verify that.
There are worse things to worry about than your perception of coverage. Bredesen might have gotten local airtime, but the national news was all about the “rally”, if you want to call it that. It’s nothing but showboating and hatemongering at its best. All his rallies are like that.
At least with one local, we know for sure which of our neighbors we need to be wary of. Those of us that are independent, free-thinkers, and minorities have to stay safe in this environment. The hate and all the other outlandish things: sexism, racism, misogyny, bigotry, climate change, etc. are vastly more important than media coverage of a photo-op.
Richard Smith
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Your comment about not believing there could be 12,000 people in an arena that seats 10,995 is flawed. The arena was packed full plus there were people standing on the floor until the arena folks closed off access to that area, so there were easily 12,000 people there.
Charles Smith