The right rallied on Labor Day to show of solidarity with Clint Eastwood. Right rallies for 'Empty Chair Day'

The right rallied on Labor Day to celebrate “National Empty Chair Day,” a show of solidarity with Clint Eastwood after his rambling address to an invisible President Barack Obama at the Republican National Convention last week.

The action picked up steam on Twitter, where the hashtag #emptychairday began trending on Monday morning as users tweeted pictures of empty chairs in various poses.


( PHOTOS: Clint Eastwood gets political)

Notable conservatives like Michelle Malkin and writers at Breitbart.com, as well blogger Prof. Glenn Reynolds, kicked off the trend, according to the conservative blog Legal Insurrection.

The blog, which had asked readers to send in photos of empty chairs, updated its post midday to say that the response had been so overwhelming — and the backlog of photos so great — that they were forced to close submissions.

“It’s fun. It’s funny,” Malkin explained to POLITICO. “Clint Eastwood resonated with voters outside the snotty, derisive NY-DC-Hollywood axis. He braved derision and ridicule for standing on the convention stage. Activists on the right wanted to demonstrate … their appreciation. As always, humor is the best medicine.”

( PHOTOS: 5 'empty chair' incidents)

As conservatives have pointed out on Twitter, AMC is capitalizing on this national conversation with a Monday marathon of Eastwood’s films.

(Scroll down for POLITICO’s top #EmptyChairDay tweets.)

Meanwhile, #Eastwooding — which was trending on Twitter last week after the Hollywood icon’s speech, and refers to an address to an empty chair — has arrived at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.

( Also on POLITICO: Full 2012 convention coverage)

AFSCME President Lee Saunders, capping off a fiery speech to the Wisconsin delegation Monday morning, held a conversation with an invisible Eastwood.

An empty chair had been brought on stage before Saunders started speaking, but he ignored it for most of his speech.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but you see this chair? I don’t know if you noticed that he actually walked in with me. He’s invisible, he’s sitting right here. He’s been listening to everything I had to say,” Saunders said. “So I want you to welcome Clint Eastwood.”

“I’ve got a couple of questions. I’ve got a couple of questions I want to ask Clint Eastwood,” Saunders continued as dozens of attendees cracked up. “But first, buddy, what do you have to say for yourself? I didn’t hear you.”

“Clint’s been sitting here for the past hour. He doesn’t have anything to say for himself. Mitt Romney has nothing to say for himself. Paul Ryan has nothing to say for himself,” he said. “We’ve got to make our voices heard. We’ve got to speak loud and clear. If we do that, we will win in November.”

“Dirty Harry, Dirty Harry, make my day,” Saunders yelled, knocking the empty chair off of the stage.

As the applause died down, Mike Tate, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin chair, took the stage. Pausing for a moment as he took the podium, he grinned and said, “And it’s just Monday, we’ll be here all week.”

As the convention winds up, Democrats couldn’t stop talking about Eastwood, some even defending him.

“I love Clint Eastwood,” L.A. Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa, the convention chair, said. “I think it’s unfair to do that to Clint Eastwood. [Republicans are] supposed to be the managers. Somebody didn’t manage that very well.”

Ben LaBolt, the national press secretary for Obama for America, quipped, “We actually vetted the speech in advance.”

Perhaps such jokes explain why Matt Bai, chief political correspondent for the New York Times Magazine, believes an improvised appearance like Eastwood’s won’t be repeated at a national political convention.

“It was the last vestige of an unscripted appearance,” he said. “It will never happen again.”

I can’t put an empty chair in my yard. It’s too busy bowing to foreign leaders. #EmptyChairDay twitter.com/Rosas77/status…— Luis Rosas (@Rosas77) Sept. 3, 2012

MT @dershy As Natl Debt approaches $16T EmptyChair heads out door for another round of golf! twitter.com/dershy/status/… #EmptyChairDay — Deb Williams (@DebWilliams57) Sept. 3, 2012

#EmptyChairDay: Obama and his cabinet. Or maybe it’s his “jobs” council. It’s so hard to tell. twitter.com/StevenRosenblu…— Steven Rosenblum (@StevenRosenblum) Sept. 3, 2012

DEVELOPING: GALLUP: Obama Job Approval Drops to 43 Empty Chairs. #EmptyChairDay — Gunservatively (@Gunservatively) Sept. 3, 2012

#Obama thinks he should be king. Well every king needs his thrown. yfrog.com/eskwytxj #emptychairday— Bob Wolf (@barbequewolf) September 3, 2012

#EmptyChairDay - Happy Empty Chair Day! - Here’s a picture of Obama hard at work creating more jobs. - twitter.com/thejollylamas/…— jolly lama (@thejollylamas) September 3, 2012

America's kids are going to be stuck paying for Obama's Empty Chair Style of Leadership # EmptyChairDay twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/…— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) September 4, 2012

Andrew Glass contributed to this report