[Cirrus]

Of course it's not ridiculous. You are missing the point.

The point of all big rallies is to guide the media narrative and generate enthusiasm. The topic of the rally doesn't matter; the only point is to get on the news. Specifically, the point of *this* rally was to divert the national media narrative away from endless stories about how enthused tea partiers are, and to give liberals a reason to get enthusiastic about something themselves.

Every liberal who sees a news story about this rally is reminded of the election as surely as if they'd gotten a call from a phone bank.

By putting a massive liberal crowd on every TV and internet news outlet in the country, Stewart essentially phone banked the entire country. That's a whole lot more efficient than doing it one phone call at a time.

... Of course, it only works if your rally is big enough to get mainstream attention and you don't make yourself look like a complete jackass in the process. The big WTO protests a few years ago generated more sympathy than opposition for the WTO, because the protesters were so unlikable.