DALLAS — Donald Trump’s rally at the American Airlines Center Monday night boasted the crowd size, the intensity, the hero worship and level of excitement not seen since Democrats packed Barack Obama’s rallies in 2008 and 2012.
It was a new experience for many Republicans — something essentially unheard of at a GOP event, especially one so early in the campaign season. Looking around in wonder, one attendee asked simply, “Well, why shouldn’t Republicans have someone to be excited by?”
The arena can hold 20,000 people, and Trump had predicted a full house. It wasn’t quite full; the uppermost levels, especially in the area behind Trump, were empty. Arena officials estimated 15,000 people came, after which the Dallas Morning News noted that it was “the biggest political theater in Dallas since Barack Obama, as a candidate, packed the old Reunion Arena. That event, in 2008, attracted more than 17,000 people.”
Trump’s speech — at an hour and nine minutes, one of the longest of his campaign so far — was his trademark mix of anecdotes, observations, patriotism, boasting and policy. He started by noting that he had no teleprompter, but the point was not to make a tired Obama joke but rather to tell the audience that he would not give them the same-old same-old they hear from politicians of both parties.
“That would be so much easier,” said Trump, who leads the Washington Examiner‘s presidential power rankings. “We read a speech for 45 minutes, everybody falls asleep, listening to the same old stuff, the same old lies.”
That’s not what the crowd wanted. “I like the fact that he’s not afraid to speak up,” said Cheryl Surber, of Ft. Worth. “He’s saying a lot of things that a lot of people want to have said that no Republican has had the male parts, so to speak, to say.”
“He has energy, he’s exciting. I know he’s got a big mouth, but people are willing to overlook that big mouth because we feel like he’s going to get things done,” said Mary Downing, of Dallas, who said she voted for Obama twice.
“Actually, I think people like the big mouth,” said Downing’s sister Alice Schoenhofer, of Wichita, Kan., “because he’s saying all kinds of things people feel, but they never really come out and say.”
“He’s kind of like your alter ego,” Mary added.
Some cited Trump’s positions on immigration and trade, but many more cited his outspokenness — the very thing that causes such concern among Republican political operatives in Washington — as what draws them most to Trump. The key to that is his wealth, they said: Trump is so rich that he can’t be bought and isn’t afraid to say what he wants.
A crowd of 15,000 is going to have some diverse stories in it. Sam Tila, of Newport Beach, Calif., came to the U.S. in 1976 from his native Thailand. He is drawn to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” theme because he worries that the country he came to know in the 70s is “going down.” (At the rally, he took a photo of wife Chau Tila holding a sign that said “The silent majority stands with Trump.”)
Vivian Murphy, of Arlington, Texas, who came to the rally with husband Patrick, said, “I’m here because I’m 100 percent Latina and I’m voting for Trump.”
A number of women said they had no problem with the various things Trump has said about Carly Fiorina, Megyn Kelly and others. “He says things whether people like them or not,” said Kim Shambley, of Dallas. “He hasn’t said anything that has upset me.” Downing and Schoenhofer declared themselves “Women for Trump.”
All in all, it was a big, raucous crowd and a big, raucous evening — an event one might assume would make Republican Party officials deliriously happy. But Republicans aren’t used to a candidate who can draw an Obama-sized crowd. Instead of delighting GOP officials, Trump’s emergence and still-growing appeal have instead made them nervous, amid worries his penchant for controversy will eventually blow up in the party’s face.
Or perhaps they are worried that the rise of Trump diminishes the power of GOP officialdom. One person in Trump’s circle suggested as much as he watched the crowd grow Monday night. He asked, what does every chairman of the Republican Party say? They say they want to grow the party, to bring in people who haven’t been part of the GOP. And then, when Trump does it, they get all worried.
Perhaps it won’t last. But for the moment, both the crowd and Trump appear to have a sense that they have set off something big. “You are going to be, if I’m elected president, so proud of your country again,” Trump told the audience at the end of his speech. “You’re going to remember this evening, and you’re going to say to your children, and you’re going to say to anybody else, that we were part of a movement to take back our country. And we will make America great again.”
