If the People Won't Come to Your Rally, Hold Your Rally Where There are Lots of People!

What if you gave a protest rally and nobody came?

That is a question that the stadium opposition groups, propped up with millions of dollars in Cablevision money, have been wrestling with for the past year. Someone might be against the stadium (not surprising, after a year's worth of negative advertising) but that someone is not going to go out of their way to express their feelings. It is just not that important to most people.

So, how do you con the press into thinking that there is a "groundswell" of opposition to the NYSCC?

If the people won't come to your rally, hold your rally where there are lots of people!

That is precisely what the stadium opponents are doing today.

Today is the first day of the 9th Avenue Food Festival. Last year, you might recall, we had a table at the festival and drew an enthusiastic response. This year, being focused on the rally this Tuesday up in Albany, as well as other events, we overlooked the Festival.

Too bad for us, but a huge opportunity for the opposition.

Within fifty feet of where our stand was last year, the opposition is staging a rally against the NYSCC today. In the past, their rallies have looked more like a meeting of the Kvetch Club, with a scraggly twenty or thirty people gathered round.

The 9th Avenue Food Festival draws 100,000 visitors. Here is a picture of the festival from last year: As you can see, there are a lot of folks having fun, getting sun, and strolling along. What the opposition has done is to take the side street about fifty feet from where this picture was taken and block it off. There, they will put up a stage. They will be giving out free t-shirts, and will draw a few thousand curious people to their rally, which will look great on camera, but is a total farce in terms of the reality of the numbers in the opposition.

If the people won't come to your rally, hold your rally where there are lots of people.

Of course, the news media will most likely not report it that way. Instead, you are likely to hear of a "show of strength" by the opposition. So, let's watch the media and see how they cover this.

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As a sidebar, let me report a conversation I had last Sunday with one of the "volunteers" that the opposition employed on their phone banks.

My wife and I had just walked into the apartment after brunch with my mother, it being, of course, Mother's Day. A phone call came in and Carole answered it. It was for me.

It was Isaac, from NoWestSideStadium.org. He wanted to know if they could count on me to come out for their rally against the stadium. I told him I'd have to think about it. Then he told me the name of his organization, and added, "You know, they have a web site called WestSideStadium.org." I told him that was very interesting. I then asked him if he was from the area. He responded that he was not. I asked him how he got involved, and he told me he'd been recruited from the John Kerry campaign.

I told Isaac I'd voted for Kerry. Well, at least one of us will end up on the winning side, this time.

-Tom McMorrow, Jr.