Slideshow: On the Ground at the Stewart/Colbert Rally

Your humble DC-based Blaze correspondent braved the crowds to bring you the story straight from the scene of Saturday’s “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear,” hosted by Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

I don't think that's what Jesus had in mind

A few things struck me about Saturday’s rally…

1. The crowd was predominantly young people, the vast majority of whom I’d guess were under 30. The oldest attendees I ran into were Baby Boomers and I honestly didn’t come across a single senior citizen. Like Stewart joked, the audience was predominantly white. I think the city‘s local universities contributed a significant portion of today’s crowd, with some students easily walking to the rally from their dormitories.

I was very happy to see dedicated volunteers walking up and down the National Mall (and beyond) following the rally, carefully picking up any trash left behind by their fellow rally-goers.

2. Attendees at this rally seemed to have a lot to say about absolutely nothing. Some were there for some free entertainment. Some were there to draw attention to non-mainstream issues, including a number of vocal advocates of the legalization of marijuana. Not only were they advocating, there were, uh, demonstrations — I caught whiffs of pot smoke a few different times throughout the afternoon.

Some leaned Democrat, some leaned Republican. But the prevalent message of today was that they don’t feel represented by either institution.

While most seemed to know where they each fall on the ideological spectrum, no one seemed particularly politically motivated. I interviewed a number of different people at the rally, asking each of them where they were from and why they came to DC for the rally. This is how the majority of those conversations played out:

Q: So what brings you to Washington today?
A: The rally!
Q: Well, duh. But why are you at today’s rally?
A: To restore sanity!
Q: But what does that mean? What message are you specifically hoping to send by being here today?
A: People need to stop acting crazy.
Q: Who is acting ‘crazy’?
A: Everyone! People need to stop acting crazy.

…and so it went.

Author’s note: Special thanks to Jim of Silver Spring, Md., for sharing some photos with us!

Comments (120)

GeorgieJo
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 8:30pm
Wait It suddenly hit me after looking at these pictures…..Jon *Hope Fox News has LUPUS* Leibowitz aka Stewart held a Halloween party today Colbert was a Chile miner….?
Sorry to see a young child in pictures and Juan Williams now the new target.
That Czar of Diversity is working over time!!!
Report Post » Log in to ReplyReply
- 52tucker
  Posted on October 30, 2010 at 9:17pm
  What a hater you are. They had fun, and that’s what people going to the rally wanted. Grouchy.
  Report Post »
alcarfl
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 8:18pm
The unidentified Blaze “roving photog/reporter done good. Glad you survived. Honest overview. Thanks.
Report Post » Log in to Reply Reply
S G Applebee
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 8:18pm
Be an “Extremist” on Tuesday and vote the immoral scumbags out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CVSMEC1cts
Report Post » Log in to Reply Reply
pattybbb1
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 8:11pm
like the pics a lot. looked like people having a good time, even though majority were young, good diversity–thanks much!
Report Post » Log in to Reply Reply
TracyC
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 8:04pm
Seems to me people were duped into coming to a comedy show and not some poltical rally. I’d be pretty upset if I spent my money on a plane or bus ticket to get there!
Report Post » Log in to ReplyReply
- moriarty70
  Posted on October 30, 2010 at 9:52pm
  Just because some people who don‘t watch the show regularly thought it was going to be political doesn’t mean that’s how it was promoted. Most of Stewart/Colbert fans knew it was simply going to be a get together.
  Report Post »
PeterThePainter
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 8:04pm
All very amusing that the perpetuators of the far left feel the need to respond to Glenn’s event. A lame attemt to keep up with the Joneses.
Report Post » Log in to ReplyReply
- dazyann010501
  Posted on October 30, 2010 at 9:50pm
  Agreed!!! ;)
  Report Post »
BoilitDown
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 8:01pm
I‘m an old hippie and wouldn’t have attended if it were down the street from me. Then again I haven’t smoked dope since 1971. My TV was as close as I cared to go.
I only watched intermittently, as the comedy dragged on. There wasn’t much to inspire me one way or the other. It didn’t live up to the hype in my eyes.
Report Post » Log in to Reply Reply
im4truth
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 8:01pm
Oowlaw!
I sure could have some fun with this.

To bad I have to go tend some other pressing matters -
seriously, what better place to hang out for the day.
hahahaha
Report Post » Log in to Reply Reply
Lau_Luna
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 8:00pm
The rally was very diversed and glad that almost every view point was able to be represented in a calm manner. Shows how far we’ve come along and for that I am grateful. Beck has been pushing for open dialogue and I think this will help those who simply don‘t know WHAT to know start exposing themselves because we simply can’t nelect that facts of what is surrounding us. First you establish what you believe in by looking within you and then you have to go out and search for the knowledge; surprisingly how clear it all becomes when you look at it with a clear mind. Just sad that most people that critic Beck don’t watch his shows out of fear that cold hard facts will actually Restore thri Sanity. Belive in yourselves people – one person CAN make a difference.
Report Post » Log in to ReplyReply
- Goobergregory
  Posted on October 30, 2010 at 9:48pm
  The thing I find most interesting is that in all of this, the people who want us (as in John Q Public) divided as far as they can get us, are behind these so called “counter” rallies. At the end of the day, if I were to get together with a neighbor who may not have the same point of view with me politically, we would be able to have a nice meal and chat about family and kids and life in general…. What all of this seems to be missing is the fact that it is not our neighbor that we so called Crazy Conservatives are worried about as much as the People we have put in office because they are just NOT LISTENING to ANY of us! The Dems/Repubs/libertarian/Independent… NONE OF US are getting an ear. This is a sociallly engineered system that “We the People” no longer have a real say in!
  Report Post »
thetroll01
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 7:59pm
All-in-all….looks like your average odd-ball freak party.

Kudos on making an effort to pick up the trash, unlike the Anti-American ner’-do-wells that populated the “Mr Ed The Talking Horse’s Azz” rally a few weeks ago.
Report Post » Log in to Reply Reply
alcarfl
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 7:59pm
Hour two and three were pretty good. Did anyone expect more than what actually transpired? All the signs seemed to be amateur made and the croud was orderly. You can find dope smokers at a wake or any sporting event, no big deal. No fights, no mosh pit, tons of young folks out on a beautiful day in a historic DC setting. The message? No clue.
Report Post » Log in to Reply Reply
im4truth
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 7:57pm
A picture’s worth a thousand words -
Yup!
Report Post » Log in to Reply Reply
DJ6ual
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 7:57pm
I have to say, I am rather disappointed. I was at the 8/28 Rally and with all the press the Stewart/Colbert Rally got I thought there would be more to it. It was all a bit silly and sad.

Was The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear March a Success?
http://dj6ual.viviti.com/entries/politics/was-the-rally-to-restore-sanity-and-or-fear-march-a-success
Report Post » Log in to Reply Reply
im4truth
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 7:51pm
WOW!
What a mind boggling interview!
So, there we have it – true sanity spoken from the mouth of those being educated by Stewert/Colbert.
Was it the kid with the sign you spoke too?
Report Post » Log in to Reply Reply
Its Gonna Getcha
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 7:37pm
So so happy with what Jon Stewart & Colbert took the time to do. The Washington Mall was beginning to feel like a scene from West Side Story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8R9GiLImSw
Log in to Reply Reply
LadyIzShy
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 7:35pm
did Aimee sya yes? did the kissing booth guy make any money? why would ANYONE take a young child? who is holding the kittens hostage? why would you set on the porta potty? nice truck..LOL
Report Post » Log in to ReplyReply
- chandel
  Posted on October 31, 2010 at 10:30pm
  I know, who is going to do the follow up on those hard hitting questions? lol
  Report Post »
A__FARMER
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 7:35pm
1,500 MAYBE…! How many did Miss Op pay and bus in…?
Report Post » Log in to Reply Reply
Capt_Spalding
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 7:30pm
A bunch of college kids and old hippies partying and getting high while thinking they are making some political statement. I guess some things never change.
Report Post » Log in to ReplyReply
- LadyIzShy
  Posted on October 30, 2010 at 7:36pm
  not thus far
  Report Post »
Highland
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 7:30pm
The photos of notable conservatives and Republicans with little Hitler mustaches was a real step towards restoring sanity, especially when one of those depicted thus was Jewish congressman Eric Cantor.
Report Post » Log in to ReplyReply
- DesertRose1960
  Posted on October 30, 2010 at 10:49pm
  Had the Conservatives, who have been showing up at Town Halls and other rallies for the last 18 months, not put Hitler moustaches on Democrats, or called us Nazis, Communists, Fascists, and Socialists, these protesters probably wouldn’t have done it, either. If you don’t like seeing Nazi imagery aimed at your group, don’t aim it at anybody else first. Especially when it isn’t true to start with.
  Report Post »
- ConservativeSteve
  Posted on October 30, 2010 at 11:58pm
  Deserted Rose – Did you sleep through 8 years of Bush and Cheney being called and portrayed as Nazi’s? Really? Liberals act like calling someone a Nazi started with the Tea Party.
  
  Now the interesting thing is when you look at what the Nazis did. Outside of the genocide against the Jews, they had national health care, they took over industries, they took over the banks, killed children who were born imperfect, took over public education to indoctrinate children and took children from their parents because the State could raise them better. Any of this ring a bell with you Rose? It’s called the Democrat agenda.
  Report Post »
- DesertRose1960
  Posted on October 31, 2010 at 8:30am
  @Conservativesteve, Did you sleep through eight years of Bush and Cheney using the Constitution as toiltet paper? Or how about the United Nations charter? The Bush Administration invaded a sovereign nation for no reason other than cheap gas and the family honor. They spied on Americans and everybody else. They tortured prisoners and believed in the preventative strike. They threw away the moral highground and shamed us in front of the eyes of the world. They also tripled the national debt and balooned the budgets. And they gave tax cuts to their rich friends that created another round of merger mania that didn’t help the economy but sure made their friends richer. They also instituted No Child Left Behind which is a nightmare and results in a dummied down curriculum that teaches to the test. We’ve been through a period of unregulated capitalism. It’s called the Industrial Revolution. The working man didn’t fair very well, in fact, their lives were miserable. The Fascists were popular at the time because they appealed to old time family values and they got people back to work, they fixed things and they made the trains run on time. They became the horror that they did when they tried to eliminate those who were different, to impose their values on others, and they scape goated whole groups for their problems. The Nazies were not Socialists.
  Report Post »
- Freelancer
  Posted on October 31, 2010 at 8:45am
  Don’t forget the formation of a “youth corp” which is exactly what Obama has called for….
  Report Post »
- Independent Tess
  Posted on October 31, 2010 at 10:00am
  Sorry, Desert Rose.
  The word Nazi comes from Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialists German Workers Party). They were socialists. I believe it is called “State Socialism”.
  Report Post »
- bobby535
  Posted on October 31, 2010 at 11:25am
  @Desertrose
  
  I’m sorry I could not finish reading your response to steve, I was laughing too hard and my eyes got all watery, but I did read most. All I have to say is you are a prefect example of why free speech is awesome…Keep speaking please!!!!
  
  If you are wondering how you should take this comment….Take it which ever way that makes you speak more =)
  Report Post »
Sage0925
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 7:30pm
“People need to stop acting crazy”…typical vague, vapid lib answer to a question. Gods forbid he/she had anything definitive to back that up with. Back them into a corner, and their brains melt.
Report Post » Log in to ReplyReply
- Race
  Posted on October 31, 2010 at 1:00am
  Their brains were already melted before they got there. Note that a large portion of the crowd was young folk, the “me first”, I’m entitled to it” generation. Up the creek without a clue.
  Report Post »
- Nvrforget
  Posted on October 31, 2010 at 8:41am
  Um, it’s just as hollow a phrase as “Restoring Honor”. To use the example in the Article:
  
  Q: So what brings you to Washington today?
  A: The rally!
  Q: Well, duh. But why are you at today’s rally?
  A: To restore honor!
  Q: But what does that mean? What message are you specifically hoping to send by being here today?
  A: People need to start acting more honorable!
  Q: Who is not acting ‘honorable’?
  A: Everyone! People need to start acting honorable.
  
  Same thing. It presents no solutions at all, just one more thing to complain about which solves nothing. Just that Stewart’s Rally was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, Beck‘s wasn’t (probably).
  Report Post »
4loveUSA
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 7:26pm
They went because -
1 Huffy Puffy provided the lunch and buses-
2 free entertainment
3 free pot?
4 seemed like good way to meet someone?-
5 SEIU would come get you if you didnt go
Log in to Reply Reply
LadyIzShy
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 7:26pm
and so it goes. LOL looks like it turned out tobe just the kind of crowd I thought there would be. However it was very nice to read that they had people picking up trash. I wonder if they were paid to do so..
Report Post » Log in to Reply Reply
just the facts
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 7:25pm
Those questions and answers above, wow, they don’t even have a idea why they are there. A creditable answer was not to be. What did this event do?? Was there any substance to it?

It did look like a nice day though.
Report Post » Log in to ReplyReply
- 52tucker
  Posted on October 30, 2010 at 9:10pm
  Seen any of the Tea Party rally Q&A’s all over youtube? Seems to me a few folks at those rally aren‘t sure what they’re doing either.
  Report Post »
- Hub City Progressive
  Posted on October 30, 2010 at 10:18pm
  Exactly, Tucker! Some of the Tea Partiers are as clueless or ignorant. (Anyone seen the Fish Lady?) Working on a university in Texas, I deal with young people on a daily basis. There is a degree of indifference and turned-off attitudes towards the Tea Party and the extremists on both sides in this country. Personally, gives me hope for the future, regardless of which party they align themselves with. We don’t need the Spirit of 1776. We need the Spirit of 1787, when Americans of different political persuasions and passions were able to forge out a document so profound and inspirational that it has been at least a cornerstone influence, if not replicated entirely, for every other new nation’s constitution ever since. I have read the Federalist, and Anti-Federalist, papers as well as papers documenting the Constitutional Convention of 1787; and if any of you folks really believe that we have come to a place where we can not talk to one another anymore, you have no clue about how this nation started.
  Report Post »
- Bluegill
  Posted on October 31, 2010 at 7:39am
  These are the same people that fell for Obama’s Simplistic Slogans like Hope and Change, When Michelle says CAN WE DO IT….you say YES WE CAN. Beyond that I don’t know what the voters for Obama knew about HIS policies. Yeah, Obama did coin a new Economic Term called Trickle UP economics. I guess it would have been too much to ask how it works, we now know it doesn’t.
  Report Post »
TruthTalker
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 7:21pm
precise feedback
Report Post » Log in to Reply Reply
Fugsnarf
Posted on October 30, 2010 at 7:20pm
I was at 8/28 Restoring Honor, and this rally in no way could beat how meaningful and perspective-changing that rally was for me and many people.

I didn’t really know what to expect, but I was really impressed in the end mainly because my hopes were pretty low. It was much more fair than I envisioned it would be.
Report Post » Log in to ReplyReply
- mizflame98
  Posted on October 30, 2010 at 7:54pm
  The Onion Rally.
  Report Post »
- crutcher1212
  Posted on October 30, 2010 at 7:57pm
  I,too, was at the 8/28 rally with two of my brothers. I was shocked by the diversity of the crowd. We stood between some people in their seventies and some twenty-something black guys. The amount of young people there really made me hopeful for the future.
  This rally was a joke and was meant to portray the 8/28 rally as a right wing nutfest.
  Sorry about your massive failure, John and Steven.
  Report Post »
- norway1516
  Posted on October 30, 2010 at 8:10pm
  I was at the 8/28 rally I had actually flown back from europe a few days before it was unplanned but as soon as I knew my trip in europe was over I decided to attend the restoring honor rally and I wish so many of these kids could have been there. It was a moving experience not of hate or insanity but of hope…belief in this great nation, to find your peace to be kind and don’t hate your fellow man that there is hope for our future…no these kids didn’t see that and its sad because events like that happen so very few in a life time. I heard Jon say some nice things about tea party members that they aren’t bigots or racist, were just opposed to the current path of this country and will oppose anyone regardless of skin color, gender or sexual orientation.
  Report Post »
- snowleopard3200 {mix art}
  Posted on October 30, 2010 at 9:26pm
  I love to hear the stories of people and families that attended the 8/28 rally, honestly wish I could have been there. Glad enough people went to tell what it really was about unlike the spin-meisters of the Progressives propaganda machinery.
  Report Post »
- paperpushermj
  Posted on October 31, 2010 at 1:27am
  Sounds like a party for young and semi young nihilist.
  Report Post »
- JJ Coolay
  Posted on October 31, 2010 at 5:10am
  “People are acting crazy, they need to stop acting crazy”
  
  By this I suppose most of them mean that when people stand up for the truth and expose lies, that would be “crazy”
  
  Yep…. sure sounds crazy to me.
  Report Post »
- LadybugsTX
  Posted on October 31, 2010 at 5:14am
  Thought I’d check in and see how the Slacker Rally went. Just as I suspected. A bunch of slackers doing what they do best, wondering around aimlessly looking for a clue.
  Report Post »
- GOPatheist
  Posted on October 31, 2010 at 5:30am
  So CBS News is estimating close to 250,000 at Resore Sanity vs their estimate of 87,000 at 8/28. I’d like to see an aerial shot of the crowd.
  Report Post »
- Polwatcher
  Posted on October 31, 2010 at 6:15am
  Where are all the pictures of the crowd?
  Report Post »

It appears that you have Javascript Disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser preferences for a better user experience on TheBlaze. You can not comment without Javascript enabled.