We’ve initiated something new for The State‘s editorial board. We’ve been tiptoeing up to it for a year or so, with my relatively unobtrusive gathering of video snippets from our meetings with newsmakers. But on Monday, when the board met with John McCain, Andy Haworth of thestate.com shot the whole thing on a real video camera — he’s got a tripod and everything — which is a far step beyond the low-res, no more than 180-second clips I’m able to grab with my little digital still camera.
I haven’t gotten around to posting anything yet from that meeting — too much to digest during the busy days that have ensued — but Andy’s put up some of his gleanings on thestate.com. You can find links to them here.
While I’ve been running around having lunch with a representative of the Edwards campaign, dropping by a Giuliani town-hall confab, posting video from that, meeting with Sam Brownback and writing a column for tomorrow about that, I have managed to get one key question answered regarding the McCain meeting Monday: Andy was curious about the Starbucks cup that played such a prominent role, looking almost like a Hollywood-style product placement. What sort of drink was it, and why did it have "Buzz" written on the side of it?
I had not noticed the "Buzz," but it was obviously a reference to Buzz Jacobs. So when I couldn’t reach
him, I asked B.J. Boling (that’s him at left, listening to the senator’s speech to the Columbia Rotary Club) to find out for me what sort of drink it was. After a reader recently unjustly accused me of being a latte-drinker, seemingly attaching importance to such a choice, I was concerned about what the senator’s choice might reveal that was heretofore unknown. As a longtime McCain admirer, I worried about the "Buzz" — in my experience, they don’t write customers’ names on cups unless they ordered something fancy, if not something downright effete.
I asked him late Monday, and had still not heard back Tuesday morning, which had me doubly worried: What were they hiding? Please, please, tell me it wasn’t a caramel frapuccino!
B.J.’s response:
I left a message for you on your cell phone last night [which I had not yet played]. It was
regular coffee from Starbucks in the Vista.
… and the world resumed its accustomed shape.
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According to the most recent polls, McCain is running 4th in Florida, California , Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada. He’s in single digits or close to it in all of them.
When, after campaigning for months, you’re only polling at half the level of a guy (Thompson) who hasn’t even declared yet, it’s time to fold up shop.