I Didn't Get My One on One with McCain

(Thanks to DPUD for linking this story as part of the daily Moronosphere linkfest. And if you are coming over here from GamePolitics, welcome to you, as well!)

But then again, neither did any of the legitimate reporters that were there. (Update: I was wrong -- he had made a deal with WMUR for an on the bus interview before the event) But I did get to do something that none of them were able to do -- ask McCain a couple of questions among the audience.

Either tonight or tomorrow I'm going to post some video of his opening remarks that I took. I will warn you that it will look like I took it with a cell phone, but I actually took it with a still camera that takes video. I was just having a hell of a time keeping the thing still.

To start off, I left Franklin early in the morning, was expecting to get there by 9:30 a.m. so that I can assure my place in line and make sure I knew where I was going. I ended up getting there around 10 a.m. because I kept missing the turn-off to get to the college.

As I waited, more people kept coming. Unlike an Obama town hall meeting, this was genuinely packed. As it got hot, I made an attempt to try to get in through the press entrance, letting them know that I was a blogger who had talked with someone in the McCain camp last week. When I talked with their pres person, he said I actually had a better chance of taking a good shot by going in with everyone else.

So, I waited. I was probably out in the sun for about 2 hours before they finally let people into the building. I grabbed a good seat on the side so that I could assure my positioning to take video.

What some of the people in line who had been at an event in Exeter told me was that there was no security at that event. This time around, the security was pretty heavy. I think they were afraid of stray bullets from an Obama fan or something.

One surprise I did get when I sat down was, as I was taking a shot for the introduction for the video, one of the guys I was sitting near leaned over to me and asked if I knew who the grey-haired guy in the suit was across the way. He didn't look familiar to me.

"That's Warren Rudman," he said.

"Really?" I said.

"Yeah, he doesn't live too far from here," he told me.

Certain politicians I would not know them from a hole in the ground -- I could not tell you what they looked like unless I had seen them enough times. He was one of them. Along with two of my local politicians, who were doing introductions before McCain came out -- former Representative Charlie Bass and Senator John Sununu, who is currently running for re-election. One person, State Representative Joe Kenney, I didn't recognize right off the bat because I had only met him once before at a Memorial Day event in Tilton last year (which Romney was also at, and kept mistakenly calling him "Kennedy" before finally correcting himself). He's running for governor this year.

Bass started by introducing Rudman, who introduced Sununu first. Sununu is currently the youngest person in the U.S. Senate, and took advantage of this to throw a zinger at Obama.

"Even though I am the youngest person in the senate, I still have a lot more experience than Barack Obama," he said, to cheers from the crowd.

Rudman came back up onstage to stretch out the time until McCain came out (a politician not on time? The horror!). He talked about his experience in working with McCain in the Senate, and how they managed to work together and were good friends.

Then McCain came out, to the tune of "Rocky." Which I thought was a little corny, but I think with the fight he's going to have on his hands from now until November it was aprapoe. He promised not to tell any more corny jokes (although he couldn't resist one about a governor who meets up with a prisoner who tells the governor how the food was better when he was in there).

Along with thanking certain people in the state for their help on his campaign and for the event, he managed to hit some points he had already hit in the past in his opening remarks, such as how Obama was running for Carter's second term ("I like that line") and how no veteran likes war, but knows that it's necessary. He also hit Obama for his comments on how he likes to see gas prices go up, just not that fast.

He also hit Obama for not including nuclear power in his energy proposals.

Then it came time for the questions. I'm going to just give the general topic and what McCain's answer was. First was on immigration -- how would he insure that everyone who's working here is legal to do so?

McCain's Plan: Have a plan in place where everyone's citizenship is checked before employment. Employers who knowingly hire illegals will be punished. He said he thought it was up to law enforcement to check on the status, and that employers were not qualified enough to know what was legal paperwork and what wasn't.

Health Care -- What is your plan for health care? What about those who are considered uninsurable?

McCain's Plan: Allow people to be able to shop around for insurance out of state if they have to, but not to go universal. For those who are considered uninsurable, put in GAPs to help those people out.

Education -- What is your plan for No Child Left Behind? Can it be scrapped?

McCain's Plan: He told the woman, a school board member from Exeter, that NCLB did need to be fixed, and he was willing to listen to whatever suggestions that he could to fix it. He did point out that it was the first comprehensive plan in the United States attempted to try to fix education in this country.

(I will note that currently, some New Hampshire schools are trying something different from NCLB called Follow the Child, which she brought up, to track the individual children instead of lumping them into one group)

Also on Education -- How can we assure that our children can have an affordable college education without putting them into debt for the rest of their lives? (Her question was related to Obama's comment how a college education was every American's "birthright")

McCain's Answer: Making loans more afforable, and bringing in more grants.

Social Security -- One retiree stood up and exclaimed that there was nothing wrong with the current Social Security system, and that he did not want to see it privatized.

McCain's Answer: He didn't like the term "privitazation," but said that something needed to be done, because even the treasurer for the Social Security system has said that something needed to be done about it. Even if it meant allowing some people to invest some of their money in the stock market to get a bigger return down the road.

No one really asked a question about Iraq as much as talk about family members who were curently over there or had been over there. One guy in the audience, who had been standing there for awhile, was finally recognized by McCain, who in turn ended up being the most irritating questioner because he didn't really have a question. McCain asked him THREE TIMES if he had a question, and he almost had the microphone taken away from him because other people wanted to ask their questions.

Anyway, like I said at the beginning of this post, I did get to ask him two questions from the audience. Once I FINALLY got the microphone, I introduced myself, where I lived, and as a segue way into the questions mentioned that I used to be a reporter but now ran this blog. These are somewhat paraphrased from the actual questions I asked him.

Question #1: With the current controversy over video game and media violence, what is your stance on allowing parents to make the decisions for their children on what they can see and watch? (This question was rolling around in my head primarily because of the recent posts that I had on Jack Thompson)

McCain's Answer: He felt that parents should be the ones to decide for their kids on a case by case basis (which I was satisfied with). He then did a weird segueway into the evils of child pornography from there, which kind of had me shaking my head.

Question #2: With the mainstream media being in the tank for Obama, and promoting him so much, how do you intend to break through that to get your message out?

McCain's Answer: Right now, it looks like town hall meetings are his main strategy. Although I did see a smile cross his face when I mentioned his problems with the New York Times.

Afterwards, I tried to get to at least shake his hand, but wasn't able to get through the crowd. However, I did manage to give my blog address to another campaign who happened to stop me as I was going to try to meet McCain, and I ended up meeting with the head of the local Republican Party as well as the guy who runs Granite Grok and Gilford Grok. As soon as he gave me his card, I exclaimed, "You're on my blogroll!"

Anyway, like I said, I'll have video of his opening comments up either tonight or tomorrow afternoon. But it was an interesting experience, to say the least, to be on the other side. I think my lack of press credentials actually helped me this time.