Where were you when... Part Two: Aimless in Arizona

(Have you read The Introduction?)

I arrived in Phoenix on the evening of November 3rd to ‘cover’ the McCain Election Night headquarters for my most reliable freelance client, a hour long news program on a small but daring network. Since there was a pool feed of all the televised speeches, I went alone, without a cameraman. There’s nothing worse than being a TV producer unable to produce TV. Mostly I was there ‘just in case’ things didn’t go the way everyone expected them to.

I checked my email and realized that there was going to be an event in Prescott, AZ on Election Day, and I figured I should earn my money, get up early and go see McCain on the trail one last time. I checked the time… doors open at 9pm…Oh.

It was a midnight rally. I checked to see where Prescott was on the map…at least an hour and a half northwest of Phoenix.

Road trip!




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I love to drive, especially to a place I’ve never been. It was about 8pm, so I emailed myself some directions and headed north on I-17, one of Arizona’s two interstates that don’t actually go between states.

I-17 takes you up through the mountains at the northwest edge of the Tonto National Forest. Living in Los Angeles, you see more stars at the Brentwood Country Mart than you do in the sky, so I kept staring up through the windshield at the dense field of light above my head. I even saw a shooting star, and not one of those ‘what was that?’ blips in the corner of your eye, but a fiery rock streaking across the sky directly in front of me the kind that makes me think a) I should go camping way more often and b) I hope the International Space Station’s still in one piece.

I exited on to State Route 69, and realized there were 30 or so more miles until Prescott. This was the moment when I realized that I was going to be up Really Late driving home from the midnight rally. I turned on the radio, only to hear a guy named Michael Savage call Barack Obama a “Socialist, Bolshevik, Hugo Chavez-loving, Castro-loving leftie!” (Now there’s a mouthful of hate…) I turned the radio off.

I arrived in Prescott around 10pm, parked behind a church and made my way to the rally site. A couple thousand people were lined up to go through security, but the line to the press entrance was short and sweet. Bag searched, body mag’d, and I was on my way.

Prescott was founded in 1863, and incorporated in 1883. It served as the capitol of the Arizona territory for a while, and today it’s the Yavapai County seat. It’s one of those classic Old West towns that look exactly like an old Midwestern town. Lots of Victorian houses and a great town square centered on an imposing courthouse complete with a Marty McFly clock tower. Except, since the town is in the Old West, the street on the west side of the courthouse is called Whiskey Row. And it lives up to the name, with about 10 bars on that block alone.

The Yavapai County Courthouse was built in the early 1900s and it’s the same place where Barry Goldwater announced his candidacy for president in 1964. This night, the steps were packed with the McCain faithful.


I wandered about the inside of the square, checking out the imposing courthouse, wishing I had a cameraman, and wondering what I was going to do for the next two hours.

A few days before my arrival in Arizona, I got an email from one of the top production people at the fledgling network who had hired me, requesting my photo so they could create an on-air graphic for their flagship election night broadcast, hosted by I guy I like to call "Mr. Election". I mean, this guy's been covering elections longer than a too long car ride from a too hot day at the beach in a too tight...well, you know...

And this request for a picture was how I learned I might be doing phone interviews with “Mr. Election”. No pressure or anything)

So, with this graphic lingering in the back of my mind, I figured I’d better make an attempt to talk to some McCain supporters, so as to have something, anything to say on Election Night.

I worked the front line of the crowd that was crammed against the guard rails surrounding the courthouse. Everybody was feeling cheerful, despite the chill desert air and the chill desert polls. I asked one family how they felt about the fact that polls indicated Arizona was only ‘leaning’ towards McCain, and that some showing McCain with only a 3 point lead in his home state.

An older man, surrounded by his family, looked at me with a knowing smile… “Well, he said, “they didn’t poll us!”

This gentleman had lived in Prescott, AZ since 1958. His family owned one of the bars on Whiskey Row, and most of his family had served in one branch of the military or another. I asked him how he would feel if McCain lost. “I’d feel like the country got robbed of a great man.” This pretty much summed up the mood of the crowd.

“McCain supporters support McCain! News at 11!” Not much news there.

A while later, a family in the front row yelled at me to pass them a chair from inside the press area. Turns out their 82 year old grandmother was feeling a bit faint. She was kneeling on the ground, head in hands. We got her into the chair. There was no water on my side of the divide, so I asked her family if perhaps she wanted some coffee, (the only warm beverage available). One of the family members looked at me disdainfully. “Caffeine would kill her…she has a pacemaker!” ‘So what’s she doing on a cold night in the middle of a packed rally standing on her feet for four hours?’ (Note: I did not say this aloud). The 82 year old woman claimed she was fine, but as one of the nice ladies in the crowd whispered to me, “You can’t believe them at that age…they always say they’re fine and then they drop dead.”

So another journalist and I ran and got the Secret Service. He adjusted his ear-noodle, whispered into his sleeve and moments later an ambulance pulled slowly through the crowd outside the square. As the medics checked her blood pressure, several members of the media came over and started taking pictures and asking questions, preparing for the ‘Old Lady Croaks at McCain Rally’ news story….

Symbolic? Yes. Newsworthy? Umm…

She was outta there before midnight, and I hope she’s okay. The traveling press corps arrived shortly after and descended on the chili and coffee being handed out by the fine ladies of Prescott.

Hank Williams, Jr. arrived, and played some songs on the courthouse steps, including that immortal country western classic “Are You Ready for Some Football?” Then at around 12:30am on Election Day morning, John McCain, Cindy McCain and Joe Lieberman McCain took the stage.



McCain was tired but energetic. Both he and Cindy got a little choked up during their speeches. They were both glad to be back in Arizona. McCain gave a stump speech and he was outta there.

It took me a little longer. I didn’t get back to my hotel until 3am.
Hell, I thought, I can sleep late, it’s not like I have anything to do until 5pm…

Click here for Part Three: Election Day