Covering a big political campaign is like covering a news/sports/feature assignment with a riot and a rock concert thrown-in for kicks.
Senator Richard Blumenthal running through the rain, and for re-election.
It’s arriving stupidly early, jockeying for a good position and then protecting it for a few hours waiting for the candidate to arrive.
And then you and everyone else are photographing the same candidate from practically the same position at the same time, and the best image comes down to who had the slightly better angle at any particular moment, and a few hundredths of a second.
Timing is the difference between the perfect amount of confetti in the air, the width of a smile, or whether or not you get stuck with the blink. Timing and keeping your head on a swivel so maybe you see something no one else has noticed yet.
Regardless, someone is going to get the best shot of the event, and I always want it to be me.
I’m often disappointed
My first Presidential campaign stop was Ronald Reagan in Hackensack, New Jersey.
Ronald Reagan campaigning in Hackensack, NJ.
I was in my very early twenties, and thought getting my Secret Service clearance was some kind of accomplishment. “They checked me out and they found NUTHIN! And now I have this cool little pin!!”
I remember showing up early with my cameras and a bunch of film, wearing some cheap sport coat from the GAP to help me along. Two Secret Service agents stopped me at the entrance, probably thinking I was looking for my mom, and asked me what I was doing there.
I’m here to pick up my credential,” I stammered…and then, nodding toward my equipment, uttered the unbelievably stupid phrase, “I’m here to shoot the President.”
They looked at each other, back at me, leaned in, and said, “What?!”
I thought about what I’d just said, and realized I had just insured my place at that evening’s cocktail hour conversation. “And then he said, get this, he said, ’I’m here to shoot the President!’”
Senator John McCain campaigning for President in Fairfield, CT.
“Photograph him…photograph the President, I mean…obviously not shoot…well shoot but as in photograph, you know…”
They broke into big grins, realizing I was about to either collapse or wet myself or both, and said something like, “OK, we know, just choose your words a little more carefully,” and I was like, “Yes sirs…sorry…absolutely…so stupid…sorry…”
Bill Clinton, campaigning for somebody, he was born to campaign.
(Saying stupid stuff didn’t end just because I got older. While flying to Riyadh in a C-130 during the first Gulf War, the communications officer asked me if I wanted 15 minutes with some General who was up in the cockpit. I thought he meant for photos but he meant for an interview, and I probably sounded like, “Hiya General…how are ya’? How’s everything goin’ so far? You look good…nice ribbons…I’ve got a pen here somewhere…”)
Anyway, I miss the campaigning this time around. Trump has his rallies but it’s not the same, it looks more like covering a circus fire than a Presidential campaign. Biden is not having events that draw crowds. Even local races are under the radar, especially in Connecticut.
Perhaps on election night there will be something to cover, but it won’t be a mass of people packed into a hotel ballroom, united in their euphoria at winning or their gloominess at not. There won’t be that searching the sea of faces for the one that sums-up the night. The tears-in-the eyes of, “We came up short,” or the smiles and hugs after a win.
Hey guys, Alan Colmes was as liberal as it gets on FOX.
But most of all I miss the camaraderie, socially but also the experience of being with a group of people who are strictly observers at what is an emotional, historic event. It’s a different experience watching from the risers, it’s more anthropological than political, like you’ve spent too much time hanging-out with Ken Burns and life is a documentary.
Campaign events are massive, calculated events that only look chaotic, and they effect everything from traffic to hotel bookings to the number of yard signs popping-up in the areas they visit. In the last 10 weeks of the 2016 Presidential campaigns, the candidates made over 175 stops between them. That’s a lot of voter involvement, and a lot of local journalists getting to dress-up and go to the ball.
That didn’t happen this time around…and I really like having to be home by midnight.
Ned Lamont leaves the podium after making his concession speech. Lamont lost the Senate race to Joe Lieberman in 2006.