• by Philip Rosenstein , Staff Writer, December 27, 2016

In September 2007, a few classmates and I attended a rally for then Sen. Barack Obama held in Washington Square Park, New York City. Politics was no more than a vague interest at the time, and Obama a burgeoning figure on the national stage.

We were there for at least three hours, much of that time waiting around, listening to surrogates and chatting about school. Then a tall silhouette appeared on stage, and everyone went wild.

I remember very little of what Obama said that night, but recall when he spoke about student debt and the rising cost of college tuition. He was speaking to me; he knew his audience.

Donald Trump’s rallies, from his first campaign speech in June 2015, through his final rallies in November, must have evoked similar feelings for a different section of the American electorate.

Legendary Republican campaign strategist Mark McKinnon said he’d been to hundreds of campaign rallies, but he’s “never seen anything like Donald Trump’s.”

Barack Obama was a new type of candidate running a strong but traditional campaign. He fought when he needed to fight, particularly in debates, but stayed well within the norms of political discourse.

That worked in 2008 and 2012.

Donald Trump took the outsider approach to the extreme — running a new type of political campaign and completely upended the norm in presidential elections.

One aspect of his campaign strategy can be paralleled with Obama’s: a focus on campaign rallies.

On that front, Trump outdid Clinton at every turn. While Trump was able to draw in crowds in the tens of thousands, Clinton averaged about 1,000 attendees at most rallies. Trump also eclipsed Clinton in the number of rallies held, often crisscrossing the country to hold multiple rallies in a day.

Rallies are just one part of a varied campaign strategy, but Trump came out clearly on top in that measure.

“The events that Hillary Clinton is holding in these swing states, they don’t feel like a winning campaign in the final week,” Katie Hunt told "Morning Joe" on MSNBC, just days before November 8.

The band Yellowcard’s song "Believe," which closed out the rally, still rings in my head when I think of that early autumn 2007 rally in Manhattan, as does the sense of hope and change the Obama campaign instilled in rally attendees.

Trump tapped into a similar emotion in his supporters, relying on the cult of personality and a few key tag lines — "Build a Wall" and "Make America Great Again" — to carry the day.