In my youth I went to several rallies for George McGovern with over 150,000 enthusiastic, screaming, shouting, roaring supporters in attendance.
If you are old enough to remember, do you recall how that all worked out for him?
Maybe not, so here it is: McGovern carried one state plus the District of Columbia.
Rally size and enthusiasm are the very worst, most unreliable predictors of success in the political world.
Iowa has had much bigger rallies than the 3,000 or so last night. I think Trump has had bigger crowds in Iowa earlier this year.
It’s not a knock on Trump. It’s the way the venue was set up and it was packed.
Except there are 100s of polls showing Trump winning big time over the rest, but this Bloomberg/Register “somehow” has Iowa 15% to 20% under Trump’s national average, and while a CNN/ORC poll only released a few days ago has Trump 13% over Cruz. And sometimes the biggest crowds month after month this early many months before the primaries really means he is winning.
I am surprised. I would have thought that rally attendance would be an indicator. In any case, because of Trump's pure celebrity status, he's going to draw crowds so it's hard to gage their actual content. He has the professional entertainer's advantage. But he is, at bottom, an old hothead. Cruz is a young cool thinking Christian Constitutionalist.