January 06, 2004
Mark Singer on the Dean Campaign
Mark Singer of the New Yorker writes a background piece on Dean and his campaign. It's long, detailed, and manages to squeeze in the word 'Beelzebubba', thought not in reference to Dean. [Link thanks to the Dean for America blog.]
I spoke with Mr. Singer one the plane between the Portland and Seattle stops of the Sleepless Summer Tour this August. Being an experienced traveler, he'd even brought a pair of comfy looking moccasins to wear on the plane, something I really wish I'd thought of when planning my footwear for the trip.
The following is a partial transcript from tape:
Q: You've seen the Dean campaign weblog, what were your thoughts on it?
MS: I'd never seen a weblog before, and there were certainly a lot of them there. Just the sheer volume alone was impressive.
Q: Do you refer to the weblog ever for your stories?
MS: I really don't very much. I really am focused on the candidate, and the weblogs are other people's takes on the candidate, and I enjoy figuring it out for myself. So, I should perhaps, but there's too much information out there for me to be able to do that. So I don't know who exactly reads them, I know they have audiences but for my narrow perspective I sort of want to watch and observe real life. I talk to people. I don't talk to weblogs, I have to have a conversation with a human being. A weblog is not really an interactive thing for me.
Q: What are your thoughts on the campaign so far?
MS: It's well organized. Very well organized. That's very striking. You have people who know what they're doing and you've got an event and there are a lot of people there. And that's clearly distinguishing about the campaign.
[Mr. Singer noted that he'd only been traveling with the campaign for about a day, starting with the beginning of the Sleepless Summer Tour. Of other Dean campaign press coverage, he would only say that "there was a lot".]
Q: Do you have any other comments about the political climate in the US right now?
MS: It's a real interesting election. I'm not a professional political reporter, I'm a generalist as a journalist. This is all kind of eye opening, and it's an interesting time to be doing it because there's a candidate who's refreshingly straightforward. And that's who's plane we're on.
Q: Would you normally be covering a campaign this early?
MS: I wouldn't. I was asked to cover this because of the, you might say, inherently charismatic and provocative qualities of the candidate. I was assigned to do this because of how Howard Dean is making his way through this process.
Posted by natasha at January 6, 2004 05:46 PM | TrackBack