The 300

Alex, the organizer, took the mic. A doughy 20-something, he wore the hallmark thrift-store t-shirt and scraggly beard of the modern, urban liberal as he addressed a small group of wilting protesters on a humid Sunday in the shadow of the Capitol.

Had it been the crowd at an overindulged 4-year-old's birthday party, the turnout would have been impressive, indeed, and the Moonbounce line around-the-block. But as it was, a mere 250-300 people (my own generous head count, which likely included innocent tourists) showing their devotion to Obamacare in the exceedingly liberal capital city was underwhelming.

The sparse march was made all the more underwhelming in comparison with the crowd of right-leaning Tea Party protesters that had descended on the Capitol the day before, filling Pennsylvania Avenue in a steady stream for more than three hours in the biggest protest of Obama's run-away spending since he took office. Media reports estimated 60-75,000 on the Mall, but Metro later released ridership numbers of slightly under half of Obama's Inauguration Day, which suggests a crowd at least in the low six digits.

As if aware the "cause" was not doing the trick in hyping the crowd, Alex quickly turned his rhetoric to the previous day's protesters.

"The main take-away from that rally yesterday?" Alex said. "Man, what a disappointment for those organizers," he bellowed, proving one can wear ironic hipster tees without actually being equipped with a sense of irony. The Obamacare rally organizers had sent their press list an estimate of 2,500 attendees.

Had they billed this rally as a Vigil to Denigrate the Hayseeds, they might have had more takers. Perhaps even more than Obamacare itself, that has been the animating cause of the president's allies this summer.

Though participants in this rally had been instructed in emails from organizers to stick strictly with White House talking points, the temptation to smack the opposition around was too much to resist.

According to one couple who came in from Illinois wearing their "Worst President Ever" t-shirts, W.'s dumbstruck face improbably emblazoned on their hearts, the Tea Party crowd was "motivated by fear and hatred, and by greed, and by intolerance. I think racism is no small component of that crowd."

A hippie waif from North Carolina was kinder, dubbing the protesters "mildly hypnotized and maybe even selfish." Her wan boyfriend, apparently not a strict constructionist, complained that "war is socialized, but health care isn't."

A young professional said the Tea Party protesters were misinformed and being used by demagogues because they don't understand "complex" issues like health care, while one protester was more blunt in her signage: "Gun-slinging racist crazies hurt our country."

Despite their concern for the mental faculties of Tea Partiers--"Don't worry, the public option will cover mental health, too," said one sign--the rally was not without its own unique brand of cognitive dissonance.

"We are the majority," shouted one protester, apparently impervious to both poll numbers and appearances, which strongly suggest the opposite.

One of Blue Dog Heath Shuler's constituents aimed her anger at relatively powerless Republicans and conservative protesters, while confessing to only being "miffed" with the Democrat who could actually make a difference in the legislation.

Dozens of signs mocked Joe Wilson for yelling, "You lie" during the president's joint-session speech. Wilson's outburst, for which he was disciplined in the House, gave voice to conservative fears that health care reform might include benefits for illegal immigrants without enforcement mechanisms--fears the Obama administration has dismissed as conservative paranoia. But flanking the "You lie" signs at the Obamacare rally was this one: "Health reform for all illegal immigrants."

Each speaker stressed the urgent, dire need for an overhaul of the entire health care system to help the uninsured, lest we topple into an apocalyptic Mad-Maxian scene of disregard for our fellow man, but they were unable to muster even one person without insurance to tell his story.