Fading star power of Obama draws only 750 people for kickoff rally of his election campaigning

Gone are the heady days when Barack Obama could fill a stadium with his followers. Like a former sitcom star now doing dinner theater performances, he is self-relegated to lesser venues and smaller crowds. On Saturday, at what Think Progress (house organ of the left-wing Center for American Progress) called "his first campaign stop of the midterm elections," only 750 people (T.P.'s estimate) turned out at the Anaheim Convention Center to partake of the Barack experience. About 750 people attended the event at Anaheim Convention Center, where Obama delivered a short speech centered on unity and the "politics of hope." And, after a story about getting kicked out of Disneyland when he was caught smoking in the Magic Kingdom after a concert as a teenager, Obama issued an impassioned critique of Trump and the state of American democracy and encouraged the crowd to back the candidates he came to support.



No styrofoam columns anymore. The Anaheim Convention Center can host events seating 7,500 people, so it was not lack of tickets keeping Obama fans away. Maybe it was the halting, uncertain style of Obama's speeches these days that kept the crowds away. Sample this excerpt for as long as you can stand it: Incredible honor to have @BarackObama here today! #TakeItBack https://t.co/MlgoxRaSIw — Mike Levin (@MikeLevinCA) September 8, 2018 The contrast in crowd size, not to mention enthusiasm, with Trump's rally last week in Billings, Montana could not be greater. Trump drew a capacity crowd of 12,000 to Rimrock Auto Arena, with another 10,000 gathered outside. This in a city with a metropolitan population of 169,728, according to a 2016 Census Bureau estimate. By contrast, Anaheim sits in the midst of the Los Angeles-Long Beach Combined Statistical Area, with a population of 18.7 million, more than a hundred times as large as Billings.