Of Presidents and Ping Pong

It Was Fun While It Lasted... Well, Not That Fun Actually

Happy Presidents Day from me and Vermin Love Supreme

Over the course of my journalism career, I managed to meet two sitting presidents, a sitting vice president and a whole bunch of wanna-bees.

One was George W. Bush in early winter 2004 when he was running for his second term. I can’t for the life of me recall where, and I was already with The Hippo so it’s possible I wasn’t even reporting on him. He signed a bumper sticker I still have.

I met Bill Clinton when he was running for his second term way back in 1996. I was in Philly then and I met him at, of all places, the courtyard of Independence Hall. My buddy Alan was with me. I think we just happened to be there because I don’t remember planning for it. I do remember two little old ladies standing next to us who commented that he had beautiful blue eyes.

I met vice-president Al Gore in early 1999 when he was running. This was in Derry, NH, just up the road from where I lived. I was working for AP at the time, but Gore wasn’t my assignment, I just walked up to see what all the fuss was and was able to worm my way into a receiving line outside the opera house where he had just given a talk. “Hello, sir,” I said. “Well hello,” he replied. “Good luck,” I said. That was it, off I went.

By far, my most interesting encounters on the campaign trail were with candidates who lost - in fact, the less chance they had the more fun the meetings were. I sat in on an interview with Ralph Nader. I met John McCain twice and on the second meeting was able to get him to sign a picture I took from the first meeting. I met Steve Forbes at a diner where I just happened to be having breakfast. He just started blankly at me and one of his people handed me a Forbes baseball hat.

Others I met included John Edwards at a town hall meeting, John Kucinich at a bar, Bill Richardson just walking down the street. I went to a Hillary rally where Bernie spoke but couldn’t hear any of it because the sound system was awful.

Oh, and obviously Vermin Supreme many times, boot on his head and all.

I met Alan Keyes several times (unfortunately) when I was on assignment with AP. I wish I hadn’t. To be fair, though, it was the first time something I reported on made national news when he screamed at a fifth grade class of little kids about abortion. Really, you can google it because I’m not going to repeat here what he said.

My primary assignment with the AP, though, was my most fun. I was a newbie so I was assigned Gary Bauer. Remember him? Little guy. He was a policy adviser under Reagan then headed up the Family Research Council - super uptight, anti-everything fun, you know the type.

Anyway, everybody knew he wasn’t gonna win so media basically ignored him. It was just me and a photographer following him around. And because everyone just ignored him, and us, we actually got kind of close to him and his team - going to a BBQ joint, driving around in HIS car, which was unusual even back then.

Once, we stopped at the house of a supporter. It was just Gary and this guy’s family. That was it. Nobody else came. Big tray of veggies and bottles of Sprite. We went into the basement and there was a ping pong table down there so I played ping pong with Gary Bauer. We didn’t even bother interviewing him or recording him at that point.

I remember him looking around defeated and saying, “I don’t know why I do this.”

I mean, nobody else could figure that out either. He beat me at ping pong though, he was pretty good at that.

I haven’t really done any political reporting for a while, and I’m not likely to again. None of it’s really real anyway.

When I first broke into the reporting biz, getting called up to New Hampshire was the big leagues if you were a political reporter. Down in Jersey, I went from covering town council, to the state in Trenton to the governor’s mansion before getting tagged to move up to New Hampshire.

Presidential politics is what brought me up here, but not what kept me.

Still, not bad for a trip down memory lane on Presidents Day, I suppose. I’d tell you to enjoy the day but I’m not exactly sure what one is supposed to do.

Oh, I know, go and enjoy a game a ping pong!