In an earlier posting, I complained (some would say "whined") about the reluctance of John McCain's campaign to provide details of his local appearance until a couple of days before the event.
The campaign was sending out robo-calls and e-mails about the appearance the previous Wednesday, but campaign representatives told me they couldn't give any details such as what specific day McCain was coming, or where he would be. They weren't even returning my calls.
Still more frustrating, the campaign had apparently given some of my local Republican sources explicit instructions not to talk to me on the record. Off the record, a couple of those sources told me they didn't like it any more than I did.
Recently, however, I got some insight into why the campaign did that.
I figured it was one of two things:
1) Campaigns are pretty chaotic by nature. I thought maybe the workers had yet to nail down the plans. And they didn't want the news media to report that McCain would be someplace at a certain time, only to reschedule and risk angering potential voters who got confused.
Or ...
2) Maybe it was purely a security thing. They didn't want to give out too much information about the logistics, just in case some nut with a sniper rifle was prowling around out there.
But the other day, I was talking to my man on the street, Huggy Bear. (Note: I've previously referred to information that I got from my man on the street, Huggy Bear. This is a different one, who happens to be connected to the York County Republican Party. It's amazing how many men on the street are named Huggy Bear.)
Huggy Bear told me that the real concern was McCain's political opponents. McCain's people didn't want either the official Obama campaign or groups such as MoveOn.org to sabotage the appearance.
As it happened, the Obama campaign did indeed schedule a radio ad to air on the same day as McCain's appearance, which I'm sure didn't help. But their biggest worry, a mob of protesters showing up on CNN, never materialized.
Some local Democrats did protest outside the entrances to the York Expo Center, where McCain was speaking. It was nothing dramatic, though.
When I heard that, some things made sense in retrospect.
I had similar problems four years ago, trying to get information about an upcoming George W. Bush rally at the Expo Center. I couldn't figure out why that should be. Isn't the whole point of a political rally to be as conspicuous as possible?
To be honest, I really don't know if Democratic presidential campaigns operate the same way. This is only the second presidential race I've covered. In 2004, John Kerry never made it to York.
Before this year's primary, Hillary Clinton staged a rally in York. I did have trouble finding out where that would be. From what I could gather, however, her campaign workers were having genuine trouble finding a suitable venue, and it wasn't solely a "security" measure.
Obama's closest personal appearances have thus far been in Lancaster and Harrisburg, technically out of our coverage area, so I wasn't under the same pressure to break the story.
It wouldn't surprise me if this was primarily a Republican concern. From what Huggy Bear told me, it sounds like McCain's handlers were primarily worried about "flash mobs." Those are groups of protesters assembled on extremely short notice through a chain of communication that includes texting and cell-phone calls.
They tend to be a group of people loosely affiliated in their opposition to a particular cause, but without real leadership or structure. (Republican readers, insert your own "metaphor-for-the-Democratic-Party-as-a-whole" joke here.) Anti-globalization protesters pioneered the technique, and I'm under the impression that it's still primarily employed by left-of-center activists.
What I found most interesting about the whole thing was the idea that an event here in little ol' York County could be of such potentially great consequence for the campaign. But I suppose that where campaign video is concerned, geography is no longer a factor.
Wherever there's a camera -- or even a cell phone with video capabilities -- there's a potential video. In other words, pretty much everywhere.
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