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January 03, 2008
New Hampshire Primary Redux
The non-stop coverage of the election that won’t end will soon turn its focus from Iowa to New Hampshire. The thought makes me nostalgic for those halcyon days when I too was a newsman covering the presidential candidates in their glorious quest for the best home-office in America.
The year was 1988, and I was a producer for a Boston TV station. The wise elders there generally kept me inside the newsroom, chained to a desk, where I could provide brilliant direction for those poor souls out in the field. My job was to offer reporters guidance in their never ending search for Truth, or if Truth was in short supply, at least something to fill a minute and a half on the 11 o'clock News.
But as the 1988 primary season began, the powers that be deemed it important for me to expand my horizons. So I was sent up into the great rolling stretch of suburbia that constitutes southern New Hampshire to help cover the first in the nation New Hampshire Primary. Here was my chance to put all my years of education and accumulated political acumen to work.
My first assignment was to field produce a live interview with Bob Dole. I poured him a glass of water, fixed his tie, and reminded him what state he was in. A real test of my skills!
On my second day I interviewed Mike Dukakis. He told me he was not a technocrat. For some reason my bosses weren't interested in this piece of exclusive news. So instead we showed a picture of Mike Dukakis whistling. I didn't know what he was whistling, which suggested to me the need to beef up my investigative reporting skills.
On Day three I was assigned to cover Vice-President Bush on his whistle-stop bus tour through Southern new Hampshire. Up until then I wasn't even aware that busses had whistles. The first event was at a truck stop where I was able to observe the vaunted national media in action. They all crowded into the gift stories like a gang of drunken Hells Angels, and bought hats with four letter words on them. Hats that said: “S___ happens.” The vice president thought the hats were funny, and couldn't stop giggling at them. That of course was not news. Then he climbed into an 18 wheeler and drove it around the parking lot, with Secret Service men hanging off the side. That of course was news. I complimented myself that I could tell the difference.
After three days of generating this hard-hitting political coverage, the station suddenly decided to send me back to Boston. I was too valuable inside, they said, to waste my considerable talents outside. What a shame. I was just getting the hang of it.
Now I watch from the sidelines. Never again will I adjust Bob Dole's tie, or chase the Vice President around a truck-stop. But I remain proud of my unique contributions to the American political dialogue.
Posted by rickbeyer at January 3, 2008 06:54 AM
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