Groundhog Day

Verslaggevers on the campaign trail zijn als Phil Connors. Iedere dag is hetzelfde, en na een week vraag je je af of er ooit een einde komt aan het repetitieve circus dat De Campagne is. Aan de andere kant: het levert soms wel prachtige stukken op. Zoals dit artikel, geschreven door Cate Doty van The New York Times:

"It’s an early call in the morning, and if you’re on some campaigns, you drag your suitcase to the lobby for the Secret Service dogs to sniff it before the day starts. (Those guys are scary. Hi, guys!) You haul your laptop and the free cup of coffee from the Holiday Inn onto the bus, settling into your usual post near the back. Some of your fellow travelers have taped their business cards to their seats, marking their territories.

You pull out the laptop, balancing the coffee on one knee or maybe the top of your bag, and hope that your wireless signal will last until the first event. It usually doesn’t. Everything is fresh for the first event – the makeup is done, the energy is up, the caffeine is working. There’s a chance that the candidate will say something different from the stump speech you’ve heard nine times in two days.

The candidate emerges from the curtains, waving and smiling, shaking hands. The flashes pop, and you crane your neck, trying to glimpse any unusual behavior from him. The crowd settles, and the candidate takes the microphone like a torch. The candidate riffs on trivia from the town he happens to be in. In Cedar Falls, it’s something about the University of Northern Iowa and its football team. In Winterset, sometimes it’s about the John Wayne Birthplace.

His voice rises and falls like a road on a mountain, and here comes the money line: "I will bring home the troops and give health care to everyone and balance the budget and pay teachers better and make the world love us again." Or something like that. You type furiously. Who was that candidate he slammed? You wonder what other reporters are catching as they type. The music’s started! Time to go. (And if you hear that U2 song one more time, you’ll scream.)

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