So this is interesting: Bloomberg did a story on how no one can agree on the size of the crowd for the McCain/Palin rally in Fairfax last week. We were following the story after some controversy broke out over the initial location for the event, and went with the New York Times’s number of 15,000, which the paper said it got from “The Fairfax City fire marshal.” But the McCain/Palin camp is claiming that 23,000 people were there, while Marc Fisher from the WaPo is saying he counted 8,000, and now Bloomberg reports this:

Fairfax City Fire Marshal Andrew Wilson said his office did not supply that number to the campaign and could not confirm it. Wilson, in an interview, said the fire department does not monitor attendance at outdoor events.

So if that’s true, where did The New York Times get its estimate? The Obama campaign has come out swinging on the issue, accusing the McCain camp of flat-out lying about it (and other things). For a good read on how crowd estimates are supposed to work and why they are so tricky, head over to Salon.

Photo by Daniella Zalcman