Friday, December 07, 2007

Huckscuses

Posting has been light because travel has been heavy. I was in Des Moines, Iowa this week covering Huckabee who is suddenly the #1 GOP contender. I'm doing this series for our show called "I'm Also Running For President", which is supposed to spotlight candidates that are running even though they are unlikely to get elected or even discussed. And when I first started looking into doing a story on Huck, he fit that description. But by the time I had worked out getting to where he was, he had become Paul McCartney in A Hard Day's Night.

When I covered Dodd a few weeks back, they let me have 15 minutes of one-on-one time with him, which was easy to do because I was the only reporter at the events. But at the Huck events there was a throng. News cameras, print reporters, fresh out of journalism school web reporters with tiny cameras, people hitting their heads as they pushed through crowded hallways at the financial company Huck toured with all us media in tow. When people are hitting their heads - repeatedly!- in hallways, you know a guy's doing well.

I had no chance for a direct interview so I had to settle for lobbing questions wherever I could. I got in something about campaign finance, other reporters got things in on health care and torture. And, knowing Huckabee played bass, I asked him who he preferred: McCartney or Entwistle. He stopped shaking hands, looked right at me, and was at a loss for words. Finally, he said that he would go with McCartney narrowly just for the overall musicianship although he was a huge Entwistle fan. As executives lined up to meet him, Huckabee told me about this one time in LA when he got to play Entwistle's bass and how awesome that was. "Mitt Romney can't play bass," I pointed out. "Not as good as me," Huckabee boasted.

I was going to tell him that I was just recently at the Hard Rock in Vegas where Entwistle died of a cocaine-induced heart attack but I figured that might not lend much to the conversation.

Anyway, after that I was back in St Paul for a couple of days. Back in Seattle now.

Also: it was so god. damn. cold. over there. Like 5 degrees. It made you believe God did not exist. Then it made you resurrect God just so you could curse God.

Also: I'm on to you, children's museums.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any children's museums in particular? ;)

Scott Chicken said...

Just remember, the cold in Iowa all comes down from Minnesota...

Don said...

The line "I specialize in candidates who don't have a chance" is not a good opener with Huckabee at this point.