Brianland

From Blissfully Ravaged in Democracy: Adventures in Politics 1980 – 2020

From the chapter — “Fun & Loving on the Campaign Trail 2020 — A Prankster’s Primary”.

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The next day — Tuesday, February 4th, the day following the night of the Iowa caucus vote-counting debacle — I pulled off three rallies: Biden, Tulsi & Amy.  The order I caught the candidates all week was in direct correlation to the order they appeared in Nashua.

The New Hampshire primary is the New Orleans Jazz Festival for politicos.  All the best performers are playing all day long, every day, for a week!  The only challenge is figuring out which stage you wanna be at. 🙂

For this 12 noon Joe Biden rally I got there at 11.  This is key. Always arrive an hour early, wink-wink, jot a note.

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One bizarrely cool thing this 77-year-old grandpa does is frequently sprinkle “man” into his dialogue like you’re listening to Dizzy Gillespie or something.  He so often seems like a patently unhip old geezer, but man, sometimes this cat sure can swing!

. . . . . 

After the rally was over, all the candidates (except Bernie) held meet-n-greets after their show (speech) — but Joe just sorta wandered over to the ropeline and started talking to someone, then just kinda began drifting along the front of the crowd, very impromptu.

A bald Secret Service type guy immediately came out to Joe’s side.  I’d seen him standing at the back earlier and he looked so much like the strategist and Lincoln Project cofounder Steve Schmidt, I thought it was him.

Then for some reason, Joe picked me out with his eyes in the second row — I wasn’t right on the ropeline.

I’m sure my visage reflected positivity.  And he looked over two people’s shoulders and stared me right in the eye and said, “What’s your name?” reaching out his hand.  I was kinda caught off guard, but … “Brian. . . . I was at your first inauguration.”

“Yeah, so were a lot of people,” he said, but not dismissively, rather, celebratory with his beaming smile.

“I hope to be at your next one,” I Irishly twinkled back.

And the other people in the thick crowd kinda moved aside as though he and I knew each other or something and gave us space.  “You’re the one guy in this race who’s gonna know what to do from day one,” I told him.

“And you’re the one guy who knows that.  Tell your friends,” he said with a laugh.  And just then a staffer showed up, so I handed him my camera, and Boom!

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Go Joe!  Get us back to where we once belonged!

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You can email me, or you can order Blissfully Ravaged in Democracy here.

Here’s the book’s prologue — “Let The Games Begin”

Here’s its Introduction — by The Beat Museum’s Jerry Cimino.

Here’s a full list of all the Adventures in Print spanning six books.

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by Brian Hassett

karmacoupon@gmail.com   —  BrianHassett.com

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