Health-care townhall goes green?Obama cultivates the plants!

The MSM is asleep at the switch as Barack Obama fields “spontaneous” health-care questions from . . . a former Democratic Party candidate for Congress:

This questioner can be seen in a CNN video covering the Green Bay event. The woman is identified as “Paulette Guerin” and labeled as an “attendee” of the meeting on the CNN segment. In fact CNN got the spelling of the woman’s last name wrong, it’s not Guerin, but Garin. . . .
Garin was a recent Democrat candidate for Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District. Not only that but Garin is a proponent of a single-payer plan, as Obama was when he was a Senator from Illinois. In fact, Garin says right on her webpage that Obama is a proponent of the single payer plan and she urges fellow Wisconsinites to flood Congress with calls to implement the single payer system . . .

Jeff Gannon could not be reached for comment.

Lots of love for Sarah Palin

UPDATED & BUMPED: More than 10,000 went through the metal detectors for a McCain-Palin appearance in Colorado Springs and the campaign had 15,000 RSVPs.

UPDATE: Denver Post crowd photo:

Denver Post article:

In just the second day of campaigning together, Republican Presidential nominee John McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, gave a command performance of their convention week speeches to a crowd of more than 10,000 here. . . .
They began lining up as early as 5:30 a.m., even though doors for the event didn’t open until 9 a.m.
By the time doors did open, traffic jammed for miles around the airport and the line of people waiting to get in wound for several hundred yards around large hangars.

Much more at the link, including quotes from a 2000 Al Gore volunteer who loves Palin so much she says she’s “never been inspired by anyone else like this except Bobby Kennedy.”

UPDATE II: Colorado resident Charlie Martin reports that he “signed up for tickets on Monday and didn’t make the cut.”

UPDATE III: AOSHQ headlined. Thanks.

PREVIOUSLY: Via Ann Althouse:

This photo from Cedarburg, Wisc., is by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Police said there were at least 12,500 who were admitted to the secure area and another 5,000 who did not fit.

So about 17,000 showed up — in a town with an estimated population of 11,000. Did Tom Eagleton ever draw crowds like that?

UPDATE: The Associated Press:

Big crowds cheered the Arizona senator and Alaska governor as they made their post-convention debut in Democratic-leaning Wisconsin and Michigan . . .
Twelve hours after leaving the Republican convention in Minnesota, McCain
and Palin were cheered and applauded by a throng of thousands that wound down several streets of Cedarburg . . .
Later, they appeared before thousands who filled Freedom Hill Amphitheater in Michigan’s Macomb County . . .

Politico:

Beginning with her announcement as his running mate last Friday in Dayton, Ohio, McCain has drawn more enthusiasm and packed in more people to his events
than at any time during his campaign. The two events Friday both drew about 10,000 people, comparable numbers to what the newly formed ticket saw last weekend.

Palin is clearly a phenomenon. Just by comparison, when I saw McCain three weeks ago in York, Pa. — where he appeared with Tom Ridge, Joe Lieberman and Arlen Specter — he drew about 3,000.

UPDATE II: Gabriel Malor says MSM are purposely underreporting the size of McCain-Palin crowds.