After The Foundry blog at the Heritage Foundation pointed out that subway ridership on the day of the 9/12 conservative protest was up by 235,000 riders over the same Saturday in 2008, it would seem that the conventional-wisdom estimate of 70,000 is a bit low. Nevertheless, Clay Waters at Times Watch found that the New York Times headline writers found it roughly equivalent to the tiny protests in Pittsburgh last week:
The Times’ print headline from the conservative rally, where the low end of crowd estimates was 70,000 and some estimates went much higher: “Thousands Attend Broad Protest of Government.”
The Times’ print headline from the left-wing/anarchist protest, in which “observers” estimated 3,000-4000: “In Pittsburgh, Thousands Stage a Peaceful March for Multiple Causes.”