Who Were Those Cheering People at Saddleback?

Last week, Pastor Rick Warren hosted a presidential forum at Saddleback church. Who were all those cheering people?

According to Pastor Warren, 95% of the seats were actually given away to Saddleback members. According to an email to the Saddleback congregation, Pastor Rick Warren explained it this way ... "The moment McCain and Obama were announced as this month's Civil Forum guests, we were overwhelmed with thousands of requests from partisans who wanted to fill our auditorium with their troops. To prevent them from taking all the seats we did two things: First, we reserved 95% of the 5000+ tickets as FREE to our Saddleback volunteers who faithfully serve our family. We then sold 5% - less than 250 seats - to other members and outsiders in order to defray the expenses of this (now) national event. I didn't want our tithes and offerings paying for this event ... "

Pastor Rick said that one untold story is that "We invited the principals of schools in the Santa Ana district to select some worthy students to attend for free in order to experience the American election system. 22 students and 2 chaperones had been awarded seats."