February 13, 2019--Trump: Size Maters

A dozen years ago a friend bought an apartment in one of Trump's glittering New York City residential towers. 

The first time we visited the concierge stationed at the gold lamé reception desk directed us to apartment 8C. 

In the elevator we struggled with what button to push to get us there. Struggled because there were no buttons for 1 through 8. Just one for 8 and others for higher floors.

"Don't worry about it," Rona said, "Just press 8 and we'll see what happens. Worst case scenario we'll go back down to the lobby and ask them how to get to the lower floors. I mean in a situation where many floors seem to be missing. If you live on 7, for example, what do you do?"

I shrugged and pressed 8. Silently, the doors slid shut. Then, almost instantly a bell pinged, the elevator glided to a smooth stop, and the doors opened. Tentatively, we got out and searched from door to door in the dimly lit hall before finding 8C.

Once inside the apartment, still wondering how we got to 8 so quickly, while getting the grand tour, I looked out the window toward East 62nd Street and noticed we weren't all that high up. In fact, it looked as if we were on the first or, at most, the second floor. One or two levels above the lobby entrance.

After settling in with a drink, I asked my friend about being on the eighth floor while it seemed that we in fact were at most on the second.

Smiling, he said, "That's Donald Trump for you. Always exaggerating, always hustling. He's brilliant at that. You pay a lot more for being on the eighth floor than the second."

I recalled that yesterday when reading about Trump's rally in El Paso.

About 30 minutes into it, he said he was being challenged by "a young man who's got very little going for himself except he's got a great first name." He was referring to Beto O'Rourke who was leading a counter rally and is thinking about running for president. 

Trump said, "So we have, let's say, 35,000 people tonight. He has 200 people, 300 people. Not too good," Trump claimed, "That may be the end of his presidential bid."

Trump as we know is not that good at estimating crowd size. Or, referencing Marco Rubio, dealing with size in general. Recall how Trump claimed, still contends that his inauguration had the largest crowd in history, even though the Mall in Washington was more than half empty. And about what Rubio implied about the size of Trump's hands, the less said the better.

The El Paso County Coliseum where Trump had his rally holds 6,500 and was full. In addition the El Paso fire department estimated that another 5,000 who couldn't get in watched on big screen TVs. 

O'Rourke's rally, which was a half mile away was outdoors, occurred at the same time as Trump's, and, the police estimated, attracted up to 10,000. In other words, at least as many as Trump's.

I suspect Beto will join the race (among other things he needs a job) and though I think he has little chance of winning the nomination, political rockstar that he is, he sure can draw a crowd. At least in his hometown.