April 16, 2011 01:18 AM UTC

Why was Tea Party Rally so much smaller this year?

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• by: Jason Salzman

Rally speaker Kelly Maher of WhoSaidYouSaid agreed with me that today’s rally was smaller than the Tea Party’s Tax Day events of the past two years, but she didn’t want to say why.

“I’m not sure honestly,” she said, standing just down the stairs from the podium. “I’m not sure it’s proper for me to conjecture.”

On the edge of the crowd, Larry Borchardt stood with a big sign that read, “Freedom Czar.”

“I’m surprised to see the decline in attendence,” he said. “We’ve got to take a stand for our country. I hopd they haven’t lost hope. Maybe it’s too late.”

Secretary of State Scott Gessler told me he wasn’t familiar with the size of the crowd at last year’s rally, but he was “enjoying it all” today.

Standing with her sign that read, “HELP for the USA,” Nikki Baessler said, “I don’t think there’s a decline because they are having more events this year, in smaller cities and here [at the Capitol] later tonight for people who have to work today. Three years ago they didn’t have so many events.”

“I think [it’s a smaller crowd] because people are a lot more connected by Facebook and the Internet,” said a man who refused to give his name for fear of drawing attention to himself. “I’ve been here all three years and people don’t need to come to Tea Party rallies to be connected.”

“It’s wonderful,” John Kohl said of the Rally. “All the people are nice. You can talk to people with the same thoughts.”