After the historic election of Senator Barack H. Obama (D-IL), the first presumably native Hawaiian president elected, supporters gushed that easily half of the 50 million plus who voted for him would turn up in Washington DC for His official Inauguration Day Lordship.
Officials are casting doubt on an early projection that 4 million to 5 million people could jam downtown Washington on Inauguration Day, saying it is more likely that the crowd will be about half that size.
And why the drastic estimate reduction?
D.C. authorities said the earlier estimates, provided by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), were based on speculation surrounding the historic nature of the swearing-in of Barack Obama as the nation's first African American president. After weeks of checking with charter bus companies, airlines and other sources, they're reassessing.
"It's more of an art than a science," City Administrator Dan Tangherlini said. "The fact is, earlier it was speculation. Now we're beginning to flesh it out and what the physical capacities of the system are."
Oh, many people are still planning to come--buses and hotels are booked--and the crowd may well surpass the previous highest inaugural crowd:
Lyndon B. Johnson's inauguration," which drew a record 1.2 million people in 1965.
But people, you know, have to work; taking a few days off might mean all future days off. And there is a recession; those bus tickets and hotel rooms cost money. Can Obama's fund raisers cover all the costs? And the Inauguration/Crowning occurs in the depths of winter; in this, the time of Al Gore's Global Warming, the nation's extended freeze might last til then.
Watching it on television--live or in the endless replays--is so much more convenient. And there is nothing wrong with that.
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