HMM: Pelosi, Dems Bracing For Huge Turnout At Glenn Beck/Tea Party Gathering. Actually, I think they’re floating huge numbers — two million? are you kidding? — so that they can paint it as a disappointment if we see “only” hundreds of thousands.

But no, that can’t be it: “The House leadership memo predicting huge turnout could have been written in hopes that it would leak and inflate expectations for turnout, anticipating that it will fall far short. But Dems on the Hill insist they’re genuinely worried about what tomorrow will bring.” Well, if they insist that they’re genuinely worried . . .

UPDATE: Moe Lane shares my suspicions:

I am certain of three things:

1. The Democrats are trying to manage expectations about today’s DC demonstration by coming up with a number of ‘expected’ protesters that is far above actual expectations;
2. The media will play along;
3. It won’t actually work.

He’ll be there.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Matthias Shapiro writes:

As a numbers guy, I’d like to ask: What numbers you think would constitute success or failure for the Tea Parties?

I think the “2 million” number is hilarious. Do the Dems really think that the Tea Party will be 3 times bigger than the biggest Iraq war protest in the country (Feb 13, 2003) ? A protest whose organizers hired hundred buses across the nation to ship protesters in?

I think that meeting the 200,000 mark would actually mean far bigger things for the Tea Parties than for the Iraq wars. It would mean either 1) a higher percentage of those who disagree showed up (since urban areas tend to lean heavily Democratic and liberal), which means the topic reaches far closer to the middle or 2) more people came in from out of town.

Given that, I think 200,000 is a huge number for a protest. And, if you’re counting protests across the country, I think it the Tea Parties will reach that number and more.

Iagree. Two million would be about double the turnout of Obama’s inauguration. I don’t believe the Dems really expect that.