Let me start by giving you a little background…I am just about to complete the Presidential Campaigns class with Professor McLean. In fact, I am writing this article on Monday night from the comfort of my full-size bed in room 205 of the Super 8 in Manchester, New Hampshire, just a couple miles from the hype of the campaigns, and about thirty feet from one of the lesser-known candidates, former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore.
About two hours ago, I left the Verizon Wireless Center, which is the Madison Square Garden of Manchester, New Hampshire, where Donald Trump had his final rally before the First-of-the-Nation primary election. People showed up three to four hours early to ensure that we get the best possible seats to see the candidate in person. Some of these people included members of my class, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, protesters and an impressive amount of Trump supporters.
After hearing the candidate speak, some people think that the great and powerful Trump is a little off his rocker, and the truth is, they’re right. However, he is absolutely brilliant.
This man knows how to run a campaign, and set a precedence of a cavalier attitude that will be interpreted as well-deserved confidence. At the end of every statement, the crowd goes wild and placards are waved proudly in the air.
At the beginning of the rally, the wispy-haired billionaire invites his wife Melania, an international supermodel from Slovenia, up on stage to share a few words…very few words…with the crowd. She walked up on stage, gazed out at the crowd and said, “Donald will make America great again,” in broken English, echoing her husband’s famous campaign slogan, and walked off stage. The crowd goes wild.
Trump talks about how he loves protestors because that is the only time the cameras pan away from his face and into the crowd, so viewers can see the size of his audience. In fact, he even said that they sometimes plant protesters in the crowd for this particular purpose. The crowd goes wild.
After talking about presidential candidate Ted Cruz’s response to a question about waterboarding in the recent Republican debate, a member of the crowd yells out an expletive.
“She just said a terrible thing,” Trump says with a mocking disapproval. “I never expect to hear that from you again!”
However, after she restated it for the crowd to hear, Trump still needed to repeat it for the crowd to hear. “She said [Cruz] is a pussy.” The crowd goes wild.
If any other candidate were to do any of these things, their campaigns would be virtually slaughtered in the media. Can you imagine Jeb Bush calling saying that he plants people in the audience? His campaign is already in shambles after he had to ASK the audience to clap for him and bring his mother along, and this would just absolutely kill any glimmer of hope he has of the presidency. But with Trump, the poll numbers just keep going up.
What if Ted Cruz called someone, especially another candidate, a pussy? People would be absolutely shocked. With Trump, people are mildly surprised, and he probably won’t lose a single vote because of it. Also, it is all over the news just an hour after the rally, just more free advertising. He knows how to work the media.
Trump supporters are feeding off the bluntness and shock that he brings to the campaign. He doesn’t sugar coat any of his ideas, and sometimes doesn’t quite think them all the way through, but none of that hurts his polling numbers. I don’t know how he does it, but the following that he has, has not shrunk after any of the antics that he has displayed.
