Opinion: Behind the holiday campaign scene

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Ahh, a nice quiet, long summer holiday for most of us to relish relaxing, contemplate the barbecue and anticipate the fireworks. But not for the several hundred Americans involved in the 18.5 presidential campaigns now underway.

For them, today is a very long day offering priceless access to happy crowds, meaning voters. This election’s candidates will do a variety of activities today. Some may even seize an afternoon off. Others naturally march in parades.

From the outside, presidential campaigns may look like smooth operations, these larger campaigns fueled by underpaid young people full of energy and idealism and, if they win, dreams of power beyond their years. They are, however, riven and driven by the same kinds of emotions and ambitions found in any fast-moving human operation.

Running for president on any day, including holidays, is actually a complex military operation that’s messy and sweaty and exhausting and built on millions of minute details. It can even be painful. And all the while the candidate must keep smiling and waving to the sidewalk crowds he or she wants to lead someday.

About two weeks ago the advance teams walked the parade route, looking for security problems and political opportunities, perhaps an ice cream shop to ‘spontaneously’ drop into for a photo op. The local volunteers handing out leaflets along the streets must be briefed and fully supplied. Hand-lettered signs, scrawled to look homemade, have been distributed strategically to...

excited supporters properly placed along the route to catch the media’s eye.

This morning the traveling campaign workers were awakened in their hotel rooms by two or three alarm clocks because what if one failed? No one dare be late because campaign caravans wait for no one but the candidate.

Those in charge of the traveling press have arranged a flatbed truck for the cameramen and buses for the reporters who will find something to complain about loudly no matter how fastidious the preparations. The cellphones are fully charged. Throughout the day someone will be in constant contact with campaign HQ, relaying news of the events and receiving back news of the world to brief the candidate before every media encounter. Candidates, forever walking a tightrope in the public eye, hate surprises.

The security people will be casually dressed with their loaded weapons beneath untucked shirts and both hands always free. Other agents will be along the route looking like spectators, except for the coiled earpieces running inside their collars.

A nearby vehicle will carry a cooler well-stocked with the candidate’s favorite drink. Maybe a sandwich or two too. Also in the car will be several fresh shirts. Parades are fun to watch, but marching in them is a sweaty business, though you can’t let on.

The candidate will swing from one side of the street to the other, reaching out to shake hands with as many people as possible, many of whom get giddy in the presence of someone they’ve seen on television, perhaps despite their contrary political allegiances. They will shout encouragement and appreciation, swear their loyalty, take pictures, ask to pose with the candidate. A nearby aide will take the photo and everyone will smile. In the aide’s jacket pocket will always be some headache tablets and two tins of Altoids; who wants to vote for President Halitosis?

More hand-shaking ensues, thousands of them at times, more in one day than many people collect in a lifetime. Often, the candidate uses both hands in the handshakes, which become more like handgrasps or grabs and then swipes swinging through the crowds, so eager are people to touch celebrity. And you never know when the TV cameras are rolling. The hands reach out in swarms. They are sticky. They are sweaty. They are eager. In the trailing car sits a supply of disinfectant wipes.

For the spectators parades pass by. But for the participants, they’re always in it. Parades seem endless from within. Every gesture, every blink and nod by the candidate prompts a thunder of camera shutters. There are tape recorders everywhere. And many more hands to shake. At the end the candidate will pose with the high school band, equally sweaty in their uniforms beneath the hot sun. And the candidate must shake hands with and thank every local police officer in sight.

Inside the high school, aides have found a quiet air-conditioned room, stocked it with cold water and a fresh shirt where the candidate is briefed on likely questions from the local press and reminded of the campaign’s phrases of the day. These ‘media avails’ are necessary to provide filmed confirmation of the candidate’s presence in town and to accompany the parade B-roll. Thousands more will see the mini-news conference than attended the parade, which becomes a stage.

After 10 minutes, on a prearranged signal, an aide will end the media questioning with a polite ‘Thank you.’ And then it’s off to the first of three barbecues. The car rides provide opportunities for phone interviews with radio stations.

Each barbecue requires spoken remarks, including a self-deprecating joke or two, delivery of best regards from the candidate’s absent spouse campaigning on their own elsewhere, acknowledgments of different sets of supporters, fond recollections of having been in town before and a brief, coherent recounting of the day’s political themes.

The candidate may taste the picnic food for politeness and find it delicious. But the real dinner awaits in a distant hotel room. There, while the candidate eats alone from room service, aides go over the next day’s schedule, which begins in about six hours with an early morning TV interview, a Rotary Club breakfast and another supply of fresh shirts. The candidates may even watch themselves on the late TV news. Aides will gently critique their performance. There’s always room for improvement.

Before going to bed, the presidential candidates who want to lead the free world someday will likely grimace and soak their battered hands in ice water to ease the swelling from yet another long summer holiday.

--Andrew Malcolm

Photo Credit: Bill Owens/© Bill Owens