Mitt From Two Angles

Anyone who happens to have read some of my coverage of the tea parties will perhaps remember my concentration on the skill of the Republicans at stage managing tiny events to have the look of major occurrences.  Here's another opportunity for them to use that talent.  It's an appearance in Florence, South Carolina of Mitt Romney, the Republican "frontrunner" and the choice of the real Republican base (really rich people like Mitt.)  Here, courtesy of Daily Kos, is the photo you are likely to see in press coverage of the event:

Looks like an enthusiastic gathering...well, here's a photo from, shall we say, a little farther back in the hall:

One of these photos pretty well reveals the depths of enthusiasm which rank-and-file Republicans feel for Mitt.  It will be interesting to see which one the press decides to use to represent this event.  If the past is any indication, they will do anything to convey the impression that Republican candidates are awash in a tsunami of enthusiasm.

Along these lines, I see that the news that Obama will announce his acceptance of the Democratic nomination in a stadium near the convention is already being attacked by the Republicans, with, for example, Michelle Malkin stretching reason so far as to suggest that Obama is a gigantic hypocrite because the stadium is named after the Bank of America, and that therefore any negative comment he makes about banks and Wall Street is just a gigantic lie.  They are really afraid of the fact that, after four years of constant Republican abuse, this guy can still get seventy thousand people out to see him any time he wants, while their favored candidate can't get two hundred people to show up in South Carolina, the current epicenter of national politics.