Our Kerry/Edwards House Party
Around 5pm the WMTW News 8 crew -- Arthur Villator, Matt Chapman to scope the site -- microwave link to the station tower downtown, or the sat truck. At 630 Matt was back again with the microwave truck and raised the mast. Sam and Grace joined Matt in learning all about trucks with wicked tall masts and kool electronics gear parked in front of their house. MB's campaign staff came in -- Tom, Stephanie and Brian, then Tracie and Josh. At 7:30 Martie McClane showed up with Arthur, who spelled Matt. She was game and held our balloons while I tied them to the Kerry/Edwards signage that arrived this morning, which I attached to MB's primary signage (recycling is good).
The Edwards call went swimmingly, we joined the bridge as people started showing up. Then Al Frankin's SIL, Carla Bryson called. I thought I'd left the radio on and tuned to Portland's Air America affilliate. Then Rep. Tom Allen called and chatted. Several of our house party are Tom's acquaintances. All the while the WMTW crew moved around, creating content, then retreating out to their truck to edit the story framework before returning to do the audience response shots and wrap. At 9:30 Scott Episcopo from WGME TV13 came. He's shooting film, so he's doing response shots and Kerry's opening, before zipping off to the studio to make the 11pm show. The retirement order for the children was Sam, then Grace, then Jonah, which allowed Kaitlen to go home, and finally, towards 10, Kezzie..
Over 50 people "signed up" via the Kerry site. Half of that showed up, plus some friends, so we're a little long on the beer, wine and tapas, but time will heal that wound. The sign-up cards are good, though the cash contributions are effectively zero. The Kerry/Edwards campaign got local freemedia
John Kerry gave a good 50 minutes of good campaign speech. Our group was above happy many, many times during the speech. A few minutes before 11 Martie and Arthur came back to do the final reaction shoot live, which was rather cool. Tom said to me he learned at the Wellstone Camp that there is paid media and then there is free media, and John Kerry, John Edwards, and MB just got a boat load of free media. It's not something one sees often in school committee races.
Its all over, five friends, three of whom blog, and a rerun on the hour-delay.
Comments
We had a good Kerry party down here in Ga. Everyone down here in Floyd Co. was mightily impressed with it. Knowing Kerry's speeches from long acquaintance with the Sen., I think he gave the performance of a lifetime. Anyone who says differently simply has not been paying attention. This was his best long venue speech I've ever seen. It was simply marvelous and inspiring. He got plenty of applause down here. I missed the Edwards call though.
Posted by: VJ | July 30, 2004 05:38 AM