The Die alte Sau, the dysmenopausal Kansas school teacher, is thinking the same way the other primitives think.
She thinks that people demonstrating (for either side) is a good indicator of "public sentiment."
Anne forgets that running amok on the streets isn't everybody's piece of cake; in fact, most people prefer other ways of expressing their opinions and ideas--and so what one sees on the streets is not a good indicator of true public sentiment.
One need only to hearken back to, say, circa 1971, when the hippies were running around protesting the war in Vietnam. Hundreds of thousands of hippies. But at the very same time, less than 25% of the American public thought it a good idea that we cut-and-run from Vietnam. (And the elections of 1968, 1970, and 1972 proved the polls, not the hippies, right.)
If the wretched old bitch wants to gauge public sentiment better, I'd suggest she use more criteria, more variables, than what she sees on the streets.
