Scene on the Road

When I found out over the weekend that I would be covering the very first candidate stump speech of the PA Primary - in Scranton - I asked Hillary Clinton's Pennsylvania media person if I could join the local pool there. I was hoping for an opportunity to shoot with the same access as the national traveling press corps. He said he'd be working on today's campaign stop at Temple University instead of Scranton, but would have the advance press person up there call me. When she didn't, I wasn't worried. We've got six more weeks, I told myself, and I'll get another chance.

So I ended up leaving an hour later than I'd originally planned, and used the time to finish some blogging. Then, while still on the Schuylkill Expressway, I get a phone call from my editor, who has the national editor standing at his desk. It turns out they've learned that one of those things the local pool/national traveling press corps will be shooting in Scranton is a stop Hillary is making after her plane lands at the airport. A Pizza shop in a town called Old Forge.

Well, I always get lost when I go to Scranton-Wilkes Barre. Something about the way the NE Extension doesn't have interchanges where I expect it should, or how it runs west of Scranton, but east of Wilkes Barre. So after I pulled over to Google the directions on my laptop, and got slowed by construction backups at Lansdale and Quakertown, I was getting worried as I did the highway math...100 miles at 65 mph is ninety-two minutes...at 70 mph it's eighty-six minutes...

I got off the turnpike, and found downtown Old Forge (only had to stop and ask for directions once) where nearing the pizza cafe, I saw the flashing police lights and big media big bus and crowd, and pulled into a video store parking lot. I made it, running up the street almost out of breath, just as Hillary was finishing up her greetings with the crowd outside. Then she stayed inside longer than I expected (with local pool/national traveling press corps photographing her in a booth with a tray of red pizza) and I waited to see if she'd greet them again on her way out as well before I sent my just so-so photos back to the paper. She didn't.

So by now, it's an hour past the time I should have been inside the gym for her rally - still halfway across town, and I still have to send my photos. Of course, leaving on the small town street - in the wake of a presidential motorcade, I hit lots of traffic, my cell phone signal drops in middle of uploading my photos, and by the time I parked, again in a shopping center lot, and walked a mile the school, it was almost time for the rally to start. But there was nobody staffing the press entrance anymore, so the local cops operating the metal detectors wouldn't screen and sniff me (with bomb-detecting dogs) without someone from the Clinton campaign to sign off on me. I was right in the middle of being kicked out, and calling my editor, when I spotted a passing Clinton staffer, got her attention, and she came over to help.

Inside, there was lots of energy in the crowd - most of whom had arrived to wait in line outside long before I even got the pizza phone call - and as I found a position to shoot from, the room filled with huge applause as someone reached up on stage to top off Hillary's glass of water. Then - and this was really something different - without any warm up speeches by local politicians or long introductions of people running for the school board, the candidate herself came right out, climbing up on stage ahead of even Governor Rendell.

The rally ended up early enough for me to make my deadlines without any pressure, and I was still in the gym on my laptop tweaking some of the photos and links on my blog an hour later as workers were disassembling the stage, camera platforms and pulling down the signs. The few other journalists around had already left when the high school turned off their wi-fi signal, but I had a cell phone with a decent connection, so I was also sending a bunch of extra photos back to the Inquirer. I knew they would only use one photo from this event, but I figured what with six weeks worth of stories on the horizon, the paper would continue to use file photos of the candidates, so I was captioning and sending Hillary in different expressions - laughing, smiling, looking serious - when I noticed them beginning to take down the huge American flag that was hanging behind where the candidate spoke.

I picked up my camera when I saw some Clinton staffers moving in to help the workers hold up the bottom of the flag. I saw young pant-suited and suit-and-tied future political leaders of our great country cradling the symbol of same.

They saw - I can only presume - a photographer on a motor-scooter chasing Princess Di into the tunnel.

"You are NOT going to get a picture of us dropping the flag on the ground," one of them shouted as she sprinted toward me, about to, I feared, knock me down and throw my camera into the bleachers. Instead, she just yelled back to her comrades, "Careful everyone, there's a photographer in here," whereupon a more experienced staffer stepped forward to order me out of the gym, "You can't be in here any longer."

That first most protective staffer it turned out, was the very same one who got me into the gym earlier in the evening. She had also vouched for me (along with Getty photographer Jeff Fusco) toward the middle of Hillary's speech when a secret service agent wanted to kick me out because I didn't have a paper media credential (the advance team had run out, and I was late, remember). It would have been mean for me to try to argue with her. I promised that my intentions were pure, that I didn't drive three hours to Scranton just to ruin their big day, and I went back to my laptop.

But I kept an eye on them, ready to pounce, cameras in full paparazzi-flashing mode should that big flag touch the floor (or Brittany Spears or Paris Hilton happen by).

I can tell you that the earnest young Democrats proved their mettle indeed. They did fold up the flag with the utmost respect, and did not permit the colors to so much as even briefly brush the surface of the Scranton Knights basketball court.

That concludes my report. Except for a chance to show some other flag-folding-up photos from previous campaigning:

Philadelphia City Hall

Ames, Iowa

Ames, Iowa