Covering a presidential campaign: exhilarating and exhausting
At this point in the campaign, turning on the news and seeing (or hearing) President Obama or Mitt Romney probably seems like Groundhog Day - repeating images and soundbites that have voters yearning for the end of the campaign.
But for the reporters covering the candidates, in the process of getting those soundbites to their audiences, they have to live and breathe the campaigns, traveling from town to town in search of news to deliver.
CBS News Correspondent Peter King spent a week following the Romney campaign for CBS Radio News - the first time in his long, distinguished career he was embedded with a presidential campaign. Below is King's chronicle of his travels:
Tuesday, October 23
We're somewhere above the Middle - the part of the U.S. between New York and the big mountains of the West. I have no idea exactly where... and that's something I expect to say a lot during the next week or so.
Many who grew up reading the great campaign books of the '60s and '70s - Timothy Crouse's "The Boys on the Bus" and Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" come to mind - have had a somewhat romanticized view of what it's like to ride the bus or the plane. That mostly goes away - fast - once you've actually done it! Sure it's fun. Yes, it's exhilarating, but especially, it's exhausting.
As my wife, Lisa (Lisa Meyer, who has covered presidential campaigns for CBS and AP Radio) said over and over in the weeks leading up to my trip, "you have NO idea!" Everything she told me during our self-styled pre-campaign "boot camp" came true - and then some.
The itinerary is dizzying: campaign days start early. That means 5 or 6 a.m. for breakfast (yes, we DO get fed), followed by a "bag drop"; we leave our "checked" bags to be swept by the Secret Service, then collected for the bus and plane. We keep with us whatever gear we need for the day.
Flying charter is wonderful - and seductive. Lisa told me, flat out, that once I'd flown charter, I'd never want to fly commercial again. She was right. Sometimes, there are more seats than passengers, which makes stretching out easier. The Romney plane has WiFi and power outlets. We're allowed to use all of our electronic gear at any time. No constant admonitions to power off anything with an on-off switch.
And unlike flying commercial, there's real food - not mystery meat or a thimbleful of nuts. On this morning, we received a printed menu with choices: crab cake benedict on a slice of house baked French toast served with remoulade sauce, gulf shrimp and grits, and breakfast potatoes OR Grand Marnier and orange marmalade French toast, grapefruit bowl of ambrosia, breakfast potatoes. I'm serious. Real food.
The day got off to an inauspicious start thanks to bus drivers who couldn't find the West Palm Beach airport. Really. But most of us were napping on the bus...and only dreaming that we were driving in circles. The flight from Florida to Las Vegas is about five hours long. I've had one nap on the plane - will take another - and these five hours in the air will turn out to be the most relaxing of the day. No phone calls, no emails, no deadlines - until we hit the ground.
Wednesday, October 24
We hit the ground running in Vegas with a rally at an outdoor amphitheatre in Henderson.
On most days and at most stops, there is very little time to file a story after a speech - you get a half hour if you're lucky. Most of us try to file at least one piece with "sound": my voice "wrapped" around a clip of Romney. The desk also likes to have a couple of "ROSRS (Radio On Scene Reports) on hand, which is me trying to "paint a picture" of the event with the "natural" sound of the rally as background.
It sounds relatively easy and clear cut but when time is tight, it can be dicey and tempers can fray. That's why radio reporters are often busy writing their stories and even recording voice tracks and editing audio before a speech is finished. After a couple of stops on the trail, this becomes common - and it's the candidate's fault. You've heard about the "stump speech" - the boilerplate version of the candidate's vision which is generally repeated at each stop with a few minor changes if any. We hear the speech so many times that we quickly commit portions to memory - and many of us can recite the talking points by heart after only a few times. It's hardly our version of Hamlet's soliloquy but you get the idea. The hardest part is finding anything new in any of these speeches, no matter which candidate you're covering.
Next stop: Denver. If you've been there, you know the airport's miles from the middle of town. So too was Romney's next rally. The Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison is in a beautiful but remote location. The bus ride there took nearly an hour and after navigating a long and winding road, we stepped off and navigated a long and winding path to our spot.
You could not have asked for a more scenic view with a theatre cut out of huge stone, and the panoramic vista of a city below. Great for campaign video but there's no time to enjoy the view, and because of the huge crowd, we were told to be ready to bolt as soon as Romney finished his speech.
Today's first flight took us Reno, two hours-plus in the air, but for a change, no rush to leave the arena.
Sometimes reporters can get a bit snarky, especially when they roll through town in hit and run fashion.
You know nothing about the city or its people and sadly, sometimes, fall back on stereotypes. Today it was my turn because across the street from the Reno Convention Center, at a well worn motel, a sign reading "Food and Liquor. Wedding Chapel." I'm assuming the amenities were listed in order of priority. My tweet: "you know you're in Reno when...."
Now, we're on our way to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. A three-hour flight from Reno, After tonight's airport rally, we fly to Cincinnati for a day-long bus tour of Ohio that won't give me enough time to find a Mudhens baseball jersey in Toledo. We will have stopped in all four time zones today.
Friday, October 26
This is the day after a long Ohio bus tour. The rubber hit the road without benefit of a stop in Akron! Instead, it was Cincinnati, Worthington, Defiance, and overnight in Toledo. No rushing to airplanes and to scattered time zones. But we hit and run at each stop. The bus pulls up to the venue, the Secret Service and campaign people point us toward our work space, we set up our computers, cables and recorders, hear the speeches, then tear down quickly to rush back to the bus to get to the next stop. And repeat the whole thing again.
I've already said that we're always looking for something new in the stump speech. Yesterday, we finally got it: "Big change," a phrase that showed up several times in the Cincinnati speech. Romney used it less in the speeches that followed but by then, he'd made his point and the media had latched on to the phrase.
Last night's rally in Defiance was a welcome two for one: concert AND stump speech. John Rich, Randy Owen, Meat Loaf. Never heard Rich before, want to hear more. Randy Owen's an old favorite from his Alabama days, and Meat Loaf, well, was Meat Loaf, talking about how there's still a Cold War and how he'd convinced two of three friends to vote for Romney (his biggest hit was "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad") and getting the crowd all fired up to vote. But no "Paradise By the Dashboard Lights." Damn. I really needed a Phil Rizzuto fix.
A word about restrooms. Every good reporter knows the importance of taking advantage of every opportunity. But there's not always time at campaign stops, which makes clean restrooms on the plane and especially on buses essential! We've gotten pretty lucky on most trips, but bus companies please take note; extra paper and lots of hand sanitizer are musts! Kidneys of steel can only go so far!
How far in advance are things planned out? Sometimes, not very. Sometimes, most everything's on the fly. Every night, usually after 9:30, we get an email with the next day's tick tock. It's a breakdown of where we're supposed to be and when, starting with breakfast, the baggage drop, and security sweep before getting on buses for the airport or wherever. It includes things like weather forecasts, drive/flight times between locations, and more.
None of the flights or hotels are automatically booked for us. We have to book through the campaign website, flight by flight, and they provide us with phone numbers or web links for the hotels, with a special code so we get the campaign rate. The cost of charter flights varies, depending on how many people are flying. It's divided evenly among each news organization, and it's also a lot more expensive than flying commercial, because ground services and food are also included. For example, Tuesday's flight to Las Vegas cost each of us $2,774.93, one way.
Saturday, October 27
We're leaving the cold of Akron, Ohio, for Florida. The best part is warmer weather, the worst part will be covering a rally about 30 minutes from my house and not being able to even get a drive-by hug and kiss from home!
Our two rallies yesterday were outdoors in the cold. Ames, Iowa, in the 30s, in a construction company parking lot, and North Canton, Ohio, at a baseball field. Both packed with people who had been out there for hours, waiting for Romney. So why is it that we have two outdoor rallies in freezing Ohio, while our first event in Florida, where it's in the low 70s, is indoors? We can't really complain but sometimes do.
Romney's stump speech includes several anecdotes repeated quite often: the story of a Boy Scout Troop's American flag that survived the Challenger explosion, a Wisconsin man who once made $25 an hour with benefits who now earns much less. These resonate far better with the intended audience - voters - than with those who have heard them time after time.
Yesterday, there was actually anticipation of real news after the government released economic growth numbers for July-September. The Romney speech in Ames was billed as a "major" address by the campaign, but all he did was verbalize a written reaction to the numbers, which was released several hours earlier.
Print reporters could care less about this - those of us in radio have the "bite" we need. Not major - helpful. I like to say, "what's major to you may not be major to me-or anyone else." So whenever we see those kinds of "major" announcements touted, we tend to be just a little skeptical, no matter which side of the political spectrum they come from.
Monday, October 29
Suddenly, it's all over. A day after a three-city Ohio bus tour, we'd bussed it from Mansfield to Avon Lake near Cleveland. Hurricane Sandy had been dominating the news as a major disaster, churning off the east coast and headed for landfall in New Jersey.
This morning, President Obama cancelled a campaign trip even though he was already in Orlando. Whether Romney would suspend an event or events was an open question - but seemingly likely.
Just before noon, he did.
His Avon Lake speech went on as planned, but after his campaign message, he spoke about the impending storm and asked supporters to contribute to relief efforts. No matter how you feel about him as a candidate, it was the right thing to say and do.
For me the questions were "where do I go?" and "how do I get there?" I was scheduled to go to the Romney rally in Iowa, then on to Milwaukee tonight. But with the World Series a sweep for the Giants, our Steve Futterman was scheduled to depart "baseball land" for "campaign-ville." He'd replace me as the Romney campaign correspondent. After a day or "what if"-ing and trying to plan an "orderly" transfer, the original question of where and when should he replace me became a moot point. After much scrambling, New York found me a flight home from Cleveland which wasn't cancelled because of the storm.
It was a sudden and unexpected end to an unforgettable adventure. I really wanted a couple more days, no matter how dog-tired and punch drunk I was. I had the routine down. I got really good at boiling down the news and filing good stories quickly. And most important, some would say, I got really good at packing up my gear quickly without leaving anything behind!
I've always wanted to do this and finally, I did. And if I never get to do it again, at least I now have my own war stories to share! As my United flight makes its final approach to Orlando, I can't wait to see Lisa; I need a hug and a sense of normalcy again. And I'm excited that tomorrow, I won't have to wake up at an ungodly hour for a baggage drop and breakfast on the run. I can drink out of a real mug and eat off real plates again. No more plastic silverware.
But in the back of my mind, I keep thinking of a phrase that comes up in presidential campaigns..."four more years." Only for me, it's "Four more years until I get to do this again!"