Staff Reports
The Harris campaign is aiming at Donald Trump just ahead of the fiery presidential debate in Philadelphia, and what better way to do so than by launching a 30-second ad dedicated to a topic near and dear to Trump’s heart: crowd sizes. The ad, cheekily titled “Crowd Size,” features the ever-charismatic Barack Obama, who, it should be noted, has not lost his knack for throwing shade.
In this latest effort, the former president is presented commenting on Trump and his obsession with the number of people attending his rallies. Obama portrays Trump as a disgruntled 78-year-old billionaire lamenting about his perceived grievances. Always one to lean into drama, he recalls Trump’s familiar whine about crowd size, highlighting it with exaggerated gestures that suggest both a lack of seriousness and an attempt to belittle the former president’s rally-goers.
Oh my goodness. The Kamala Harris campaign is now running this ad of Barack Obama brilliantly mocking Donald Trump for his weird obsession with crowd sizes on Fox ahead of the debate. This campaign isn’t holding back one bit & it’s so amazing.
— Victor Shi (@Victorshi2020) September 10, 2024
Kamala Harris, the queen bee of the Democrat ticket—at least until her party figures out who else to put in the spotlight—has seen her own rally attendance numbers swell since officially stepping in to represent the Democrats post-Biden. The Harris campaign cleverly claims that they’ve taken the crowd-size crown, attempting to marginalize Trump’s constant boast of massive attendance as nothing more than a childish fixation. One might wonder if the Democrats are actually concerned about Trump’s crowd sizes or simply terrified that their message might not resonate without the lure of supposedly large gatherings.
Digging deeper, the Harris team is leaning on a dubious analysis from the New York Times that suggests Harris can draw crowds that rival Trump’s—if by “rival” they mean sporadically outdrawing him in environments maybe a bit friendlier to Democrats, but still no cigar. Meanwhile, Trump is making headlines in advance of the debate by taking aim at Harris’ record during the Biden years, which is marked by an uptick in chaos, skyrocketing inflation, and an unmitigated disaster of a military withdrawal from Afghanistan. One has to wonder if any crowd sizes alone could overshadow the very real consequences of those policies.
In an additional bizarre twist, the Harris campaign has begun trotting out ads featuring former Vice President Mike Pence and other ex-Trump aides, now claiming the former president is unfit to lead. This strategy seems to rest on the hope that voters will forget their joyously supported policies during the Trump years simply because a handful of officials have undergone a dramatic change of heart. At this point, it begs the question: who really needs to obsess about crowd sizes when their platforms have led to such disarray?
With the debate looming, it’s anyone’s guess how Trump will handle the Harris crowd-size nonsense. Expect fireworks as Trump is likely to respond forcefully, utilizing the debate as a platform to highlight the very real issues facing the country, all while poking fun at the Democrats’ obsession with his rally attendance. After all, while Harris debates crowd size, Trump will talk facts—and that is bound to rattle the Democrat campaign in bold fashion.
