CC Crowd Reports 2 Capstick; Quibble, Implications

Since he's already got initial numbers: ian@mediastyle.ca. I disagree with his methodology*, though I understand it. Credibility concerns inevitably lead to lowballing. Using the median means unrealistically low counts, as the CAPP folk have been of exceptionally good faith all the way through, compared with usual political parties, and optimists' counts are already low as they rightly feared media (ex: Akin pre-rally) would leap on any opportunity to burst perceived over-counts. So the optimists were already more than usually circumspect in this case, to say the least. It was in their interest to be so. The pessimists, on the other hand, had a vital interest in extreme lowballing, more than usual again, precisely because of CAPP's increased credibility as non-partisan, so they are throwing out as low as possible numbers, determined by just how low they can get away with. So unlike usual partisan events, where they tend to balance out more, we have here one side more than usually circumspect, and another more than usually extreme. As a result, using the median, where no consensus, and consensus is obviously very unlikely, leads to unusually heavy lowballing. As noted, completelt understandable, for credibility's sake. But two concerns remain:

1) Respect for all those ordinary Canadians, in communities large and small, who put on longjohns, made thermoses of hot coffee, made their own signs, made way to rallies, & stood in cold, giving up a good chunk of their weekend. If media & politicians and everyone wants to encourage political participation, as they claim, then when the people do actually participate, they should at least have the encouragement of having their efforts recognised. Some examples include, 100+ in Charlottetown, forgotten 20+ in London UK (report in Globe next to Capstick's...) & the one that's really intriguing me, Saint John NB, which either didn't happen as scheduled or hasn't been covered by either CBC or Telegraph Journal.

2) Ratio of Facebook involvement to rally involvement. It's at least 15% it seems, 30 000/200 000. But that is accepting Capstick's understandable lowballing. After he's got the numbers from all 67 rallies, and given his lowball estimates, I'd like Capstick & others to give their own best estimates. That is, not what they feel obliged to say out of concern for credibility, but honest best guess. Mine is 20%+, judging from estimates, ie. real total 40 000+/210 000ish (as of Sat morn, right?). Maybe, given lowballing of large rallies, notably Toronto, Ottawa, etc., even 50 000, ie. close to 25%.

This would be really interesting and useful information, and give us a rough guide to correlation from online to offline involvement in Canada (different countries, different political cultures). And when you consider that rallying is way more effort than voting, whether it's "just" 15% or 25%, has massive political & electoral implications. If around 20% of Facebookers (uh, using median...) were willing to rally, then implication is the other 80% are at least willing to show up and actually vote on issue. And given elections are decided by less than 10% of population, swing voters in suburban/ex-urban ridings, who are post-ideological non-partisan independents (seems repetitive, but all three descriptions needed), then underlines that process questions do matter, massively, as speak to their ethos: people should play fair ("I pay my taxes they should too..., I obey the law they should too..., I went through immigration system and don't like these new queue-jumpers, etc."). Process questions cut through anti-ideological suspicion. It's not about Left & Right, it's about Right & Wrong. Old story? 1993, 2006, etc.? Yes, but new emerging factor in Canada, is ability for non-partisan online group like CAPP to actually go out and MAKE IT matter, rather than waiting for it to happen. And that's real politics, the old-fashioned kind: 21st century politics is looking a lot like 19th, all of a sudden (pamphleteering yesterday, internet today).

*Capstick: "Methodology: Using the #noprorogue and #CAPP tags on Twitter; we tracked the protests in each city as the estimated numbers were tweeted (by any source) we noted it; in each case where more than one report was issued we waited until the tweets roughly indicated the number present. In cases where estimates varied by large numbers; we waited until a consensus emerged. Where no consensus was found; we took the median. One tweet from each group has been placed in the source column."