One of the criteria that NBC said Gravel did not meet was making 14 visits to Iowa and New Hampshire, which he pointed out was an arbitrary number. Gravel explained that he didn't count and didn't announce his visits because, with his low budget, one way to increase security was to not telegraph his locations ahead of time. Frankly, I'm not sure I buy that one. If you're running for president, you WANT people to know where you're going. I would have liked to interview him, but he arrived with just enough time to get set up on stage and get started. My early arrival had been for naught. But I did speak with another Dem presidential candidate, Henry Hewes who was also complaining about the lack of coverage, and how the mainstream media were having too much influence on the elections. While we were talking... well, mostly, him talking, me listening, he had a guy videotaping and another guy keeping people from walking between the camera and the two of us.
I got a chance to meet Gravel's communication director, David Eisenbach. We swapped contact info and I took off, to get back to the filing room, to catch the debate. It
After the debate, I had a chance to speak with Howard Dean, so I asked him how he felt about NBC's screening out candidates from the debate.
Rob Kall: NBC says there are over 100 candidate candidates who have declared running in the democratic presidency race...
HD: A Hundred thirty eight.
RK: So do you think it was reasonable, what they did today, in terms of...
HD: Yeah. You have to have some kind of criteria. They made the decision, but we supported their decision.
I also asked Dean about the 30 and 60 second rounds of the debate. I think they force the candidates to respond with emotions and stridency that is not normal, but that the media can then use, conveniently, for sound-bytes. That's good for the media, not necessarily for the candidates, especially those who don't speak in short soundbytes.
He replied, "Sure that's what they do. You're going to get different kinds-- we're going to have six debates and each debate is going to have a different character..."
BTW, the last time I spoke with Dean was about13 or 14 months ago, when he was stumping for congressionial candidates in Bucks County PA. Last night, he looked like he'd lost a lot of weight. I should have asked him how he did it. Keeping ahead of Rahm Emanuel?
Things got tight in the spin room, with a ton of foreign press teams-- interviewer and camera person, surrounding the interviewees. I got a chance to chat with General Wesley Clark, who was stumping for Hillary, David Bonior, former US congressman and campaign manager for John Edwards.
I chatted with Bill Richardson's press guy, Dennis Kucinich, his wife Elizabeth, and his debate coach, Steve Cobble.
Kucinich and The UFO Story
I was expecting Kucinich to get hit on the UFO story that his child's godmother, Shirley McLain mentioned in her latest book-- that he'd seen one while at her house.
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