So the mighty force known as Students for John McCain held a rally today in conjunction with Obama’s visit to St. Louis.  And, from what I hear, they were able to attract a whopping 23 people to hold catchy signs like “change you can’t afford.”  That’s right: 23 whole people.  Try counting that on one hand!  Of course, at least two of them were paid staffers, one was a former Republican House member, and who knows how many others had some official role in the local campaign.  

But this pathetic turnout was not enough to prevent the Post-Dispatch’s “Political Fix” blog from doing a segment that featured a video presenting only the viewpoints of McCain supporters.  

Now it wouldn’t actually peeve me that much if the Post-Dispatch just thought that getting 23 people together for a cause counts as a newsworthy event.  But I happen to remember that earlier this year, on the 5th anniversary of the war, over 250 people stood in a line between Kit Bond’s office and a defense contractor to protest the continuation of the Iraq war.  And what kind of coverage did the Post-Dispatch provide for this rally ten times bigger than the McCain rally and composed entirely of volunteers?  Nary a peep, of course, nary a peep.

So why, exactly, is the bar set so much higher for progressive rallies to attract media attention?

Update: The reporter Adam Jadhav emailed me to note that they already did a video segment on the Dems point of view.  So I should at least mention that the coverage of a 23 person rally isn’t entirely out of the blue, but rather is an attempt to provide “balance” to the previous video.  This, of course, still doesn’t  explain why hundreds of people showing up to protest on the anniversary of the war doesn’t count as newsworthy.