Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The Friess Curse Is Over!

In my entire journalistic career, I have only ever covered presidential and vice presidential campaign losers. Dole, Kemp, Gore, Liebeman, Kerry and Edwards. They can all blame me. It was starting to weigh heavily on my mind this year as I've covered Obama, Clinton, Dodd, Biden, Romney, Huckabee, Richardson and, again, Edwards. The one time I was supposed to cover John McCain, he showed up 15 minutes early for a press conference and it only lasted 5 minutes. I showed up on time and totally missed him.

Well, the curse is now officially over. I covered Gov. Sarah Palin speaking in Henderson today. One way or the other, now, I will have been in the presence of the winner. I now officially am not responsible for the outcome of this election. What a relief. Here's the proof:


OK, she's hard to see. But look below at the enormity of the crowd at the Henderson Pavilion that Palin bafflingly referred to being delighted she was visiting the UNLV campus, which she was nowhere near. (Looking forward to seeing if anyone in the local press caught that since nobody nationally would've known the difference.)


In fact, the crowds were so huge that they had to put up huge screens for the overflow crowd that couldn't make it into the Pavilion proper, see?


Oh! Oh! Oh! I almost TOTALLY forgot! Just days after I listened on my iPod to a great NPR report about the history of presidential campaign songs, an art that evidently has gone by the wayside in our modern era, it so happens John McCain has one! They handed out this sheet music at the Palin rally today.


No, really. This is a real thing. It's copyrighted to a fellow named James Mann of Los Angeles. C'mon... Vote! Vote! Vote! Win! Win! Win! What other words could you possibly want in a campaign ditty? But, seriously, is McCain really shy or is that just an effort to make a rhyme? Why not the more age-appropriate "spry"?

Sadly, there was no Palinista sing-along in Henderson. Anyone out there who can read sheet music want to sing it for me? Leave it at (206) 424-4737. I'm dying to know how these brilliant lyrics leap off the page.

4 comments:

Troy in Las Vegas said...

What? You have never covered Ron Paul? Remember according to biblical prophecy, Ron Paul will part the Potomac and lead the fiscal conservatives out of Washington, DC.

Bay in TN said...

Steve, I'm not criticizing you. I swear I'm not. I'm your biggest fan, after all. But whenever someone says that a politician/rock star/traveling medicine show/whatever was wrong/strange/baffling when they referred to being in the wrong place, I'm always perplexed. It's just so easy to get lost when you're on the road. Heck, I do it, and I'm not even "on the road." There are five or six little towns surrounding the place I grew up, which I routinely confuse with the other four or five other towns. And I grew up there! I should know better.

I don't know; I just can't pick on Bruce Springsteen because he accidentally called Knoxville "Cincinnati" or whatever. In the great scheme of things, it's just a teeny tiny minor detail.

I mean -- there are so many other things about which one can question Gov. Palin's qualifications as a VP candidate. I'm not sure I can really pick on her for being a woman, a mother, a conservative Christian, or a chick who just doesn't know where UNLV is. I've been to LV under far less stressful circumstances, and I'm not sure where UNLV is, myself.

I'm just sayin'. Is all.

(I'm Bay, and I approve this blog comment post...)

Anonymous said...

I'm most amused that the song references "Palin and McCain" and not the vice-versa, especially since their names are both two syllables and that would be the actual ticket. The writer must be one of those 'energized base voters' that I've heard so much about.

If I still owned a piano, or if I even owned a cheap Casio, I'd leave an instrumental message on the podcast for you and Miles to sing along to (I can picture the iTunes reviews now...) but since moving to Vegas I've become keyboardless.

Anonymous said...

Why didn't they just set the victory song to the tune of "This Old Man?"