Did you hear? Eleventy bazillion people showed up to hear Donald Vonshitzinpants drone on for hours about himself in Wildwood, New Jersey. Welp, Lisa Fagan, spokesperson for the city of Wildwood, is the one who guestimated that between 80,000 and 100,000 attendees were there, "based on her own observations on the scene Saturday, having seen 'dozens' of other events in the same space." This really needs a 'Sure, Jan" gif. Trumpers ran with that number, but Fagan and I'm going to guess that she's a Trump supporter, who knows, was way off.
The story has changed. Wildwood officials now say the 80K to 100K number was not the number on the beach at the rally but the total number of people "in our town," including restaurants, bars, and other places. Imagine that.
NJ Insider reports:
Lisa Fagan, the Wildwood press spokesperson AP originally cited as the source for the original crowd estimate was quoted as saying the eye-popping estimate was "based off her own observations on the scene Saturday, having seen 'dozens' of other events in the same space."
Five days later, when asked to explain the wide variance between the AP reporting and the NJ.com video that reveals a crowd in the few thousands, Fagan provided a statement from Mayor Troiano at odds with what the wire service initially attributed to Fagan.
"As a tourist town, we speak in tourism numbers," Troiano wrote. "When we see that volume of people attending a beach event, we know that 80,000+ people are in our town. We see a quarter of a million visitors every weekend in the summer on our 1.89-mile boardwalk, not to mention our five-mile island, so we know what that volume looks like. They were watching and listening from the beach and boardwalk, in bars and restaurants, at hotels and second homes. People even lined up along the streets parade-style. We defer to the Trump Campaign for the exact count on the beach."
A Republican dong Republican things:
Wildwood Mayor Ernie Troiano (R) told NJ Advance Media last week "the rally will be held between Schellenger and Spicer avenues, a stretch of beach between two amusement park piers" accommodating "a crowd size of between 30,000 and 40,000."
It gets better:
Troiano is under indictment on state corruption charges that he, along with former Wildwood Mayor Pete Byron and City Commissioner Steve Mikulski, fraudulently obtained coverage in the State Health Benefits Program (SHBP) as full time employees. All three pleaded not guilty.
What was the actual number? Who knows? I'd guess around 7,500 Trumpers attended the event. That's still too many people. And who knows how many were seen leaving early? And all of this was done to massage Trump's massive ego.
And it's going to happen again. Count on it:
