Roger Catlin | TV Eye

Preparing for the Convention

It may be a while before they have a candidate, but the Democratic National Committee has already been spending months planning its convention August in Denver.

Its organizers, drawn from the worlds of politics and event planning, threw a teleconference for entertainment reporters last week, but didn’t have a lot to say.

It will be months before they even book entertainment for the event. But Mark Squier one of the executive producers of the event, says there will be a different feel to the event than the made-for-TV events of the past.

"These things used to be slaves of network coverage," he said. "The one thing we’re trying to have in this is to have a two way dialogue. Our challenge is coming up with lots of different ways for people interact with candidates, and the nominees, so they feel they have some piece of what’s going on in Denver the four days we’re there."

The idea, Squier says, is to "take down the walls of the convention and make it as transparent and open to people there and across the country."

He wouldn’t be specific, but it sounds a lot like internet connections, especially in a year that has already seen a couple of debates where questions were provided through YouTube.

"Since 2004, technology has come such a long way," said co-producer Ricky Kirshner, who has put on past Super Bowl halftime shows. A satellite hookup with a couple in Ohio who spoke about healthcare four years ago took all day to set up. "People can now log onto their computers at home," he says. "You can bring people into the hall in a way that as short as four years ago should have been impossible."

This will be the first convention presented in high definition, which will bring its own new technology challenges.

But it will be far better than the last time there was a convention in Denver 100 years ago.

Back then, he said, "they had to bring snow in from Rockies for air conditioning."

Opening the Airwaves

The Public Interest Public Airwaves Coalition has commended Granite Broadcasting for providing free airtime for candidates for public office during the election year.

This year, Granite, which owns and operates, or provides programming, sales and other services to 23 channels in 11 markets offers free time to candidates the six weeks leading up to election day.

"In an era when many broadcasters treat the publicly owned airwaves they utilize to broadcast as a right and not a privilege, Granite broadcasting deserves credit for providing a service to its viewers and an example to other station owners," the organization said in a statement.

This in contrast to broadcasters everywhere who salivate come the political season, not so they can inform their viewers but so they can make boatloads of cash from campaigns. Broadcasters in Florida and Michigan were waiting for do-overs there not to ensure that the states are represented but that their coffers were full.

The law requires broadcasters serve the citicems in the communities where they operate by fulfilling public interst obligations but very few actually do so, the PIPAC says.

The 11 markets Granite operates in are: San Francisco; Detroit; Buffalo; Fresno; Syracuse; Utica, N.Y.; Binghamton, N.Y.; Elmira, N.Y.; Fort Wayne, Ind.; Peoria, Ill.; and Duluth, Minn.

Candidates Meet Veterans

It’s been an unusual week for Barack Obama. Besides a speech that may define his political career, and a pair of sharply worded addresses regarding the Iraq War on the occasion of its fifth anniversary, he was also seen Thursday shootinig pool with some veterans in Pennsylvania as part of an MTV special.

"Choose of Lose," which came on immediately after "TRL," had the MTV personality Sway bringing together Obama and Hillary Clinton separately in Pennsylvania to meet with the carefully chosen and articulate soldiers back from Iraq.

The hourlong special, produced in conjunction with the Associated Press, involved more listening than speaking, but that aspect of a presidential run is not often stressed enough.

Boxers vs. Briefs Won't Come Up

Ernest Johnson of Bridgeport will be one of eight veterans back from tours of duty in Iraq to tell their stories and pose some questions to the two Democratic candidates at an MTV political forum Thursday on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the war.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will be on hand to answer questions from Johnson and seven other soldiers for the "Choose or Lose" event held in conjunction with the Associated Press.

The others are: Chris Weimer of San Diego, Ryan Groves of Washington D.C., Max Nitze of Cambridge, Mass.; Wendell Guillermo of Santa Monica, Calif.; Jessica McDermott of Durham, N.C.; Christina Correa of Los Angeles; and Herold Noel of New York.

MTV's Sway Calloway will host. John McCain was invited to attend but could not due to scheduling problems.

"Choose or Lose Presents Clinton & Obama Andwer Young Veterans" showing at 6 p.m. Thursday on MTV as well as its other platforms, mtvU, MTV2, MTV Tr3s, MTV Hits and MTV Jams. It will also be streamed live on Associated Press Online Video Network and broadcast on Associated Press Radio and be on demand at www.chooseorlose.com.

Obama's Speech: Do the Wright Thing

It was a remarkable TV moment, a towering speech of the political season that may well be one for the books.

Barack Obama was specifically dealing with race in his speech in Philadelphia, and unlike, say, Mitt Romney's much touted speech regarding his own religion, Mormonism, Obama actually said something about it, touching on some truths on this lingering American issue and breaking considerably out of the political fog into a national dialog.

He was driven to this point by the latest trumped-up "controversy" -- and believe me we will see a lot of them as the months roll on.

It concerns Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright, seen in a five-year-old sermon on a smudgy tape going all fire and brimstone on racism in the U.S.A. It wasn't something Obama said, it was something his pastor said. And it certainly made my mind up: I'm not going to vote for Jeremiah Wright for president.

Look, if I had to be associated with every bad metaphor my Lutheran pastors said when I was growing up, I might have to make a speech too. (What's next? Obama apologizing for his butcher of 20 years short-changing a customer? Before this election is over Obama will have to "distance" himself from everything any African-American has ever done).

I guess you can't just ignore the Rush Limbaughs when they're feeding their shows with the incindiary tapes every hour of every show. But Obama rose to the occasion to actually tell truth about the frustrations that lead to angry words with a kind of illumination that make jerks like Limbaugh cringe like Frankenstein before a fire.

If you saw it, you know what I mean. But if you didn't see it, I'm afraid you won't ever see it.

More than one analyst called it the most significant speech on race in America since Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream." Nevertheless, the 24-hour cable news operations who had plenty of time to show the thing again decided to do something else -- talk about what he said instead.

You could imagine if cable was around during the Civil War, we'd hear what pundits thought about the Gettysburg Address but not the address itself. They'll talk themselves blue about nuances, whether it hit the mark (whatever that is) or thread the needle (ditto), and most importantly, did it put the Jeremiah Wright hubbub behind him?

And what of the speech? You could watch it in five-minute bits on YouTube. Or you could read it.

Here are his prepared remarks in their entirety:

Hillary's 'SNL' Defense

The cantankerous 20th debate Tuesday between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama from Ohio had a faint air of desperation about it.

After all, the two began the discussion with nearly 20 minutes of back-and-forth about the minute details of each’s proposed health care plan.

Clinton, feeling a bit besieged by questions from Brian Williams and Tim Russert, first complained about the practice of asking her questions first (leaving Obama to refute them), before comparing the debates to one staged on “Saturday Night Live” a few evenings back.

"Can I just point out that in the last several debates, I seem to get the first question all the time," Clinton says.  "I do find it curious."

And, she added, for “anybody who saw ‘Saturday Night Live,’ maybe we should ask Barack if he’s comfortable and needs another pillow.”

Misstate of the Union

For as big a deal as the networks still make it out to be, George Bush's final State of the Union address Monday was a bore. He didn't really say goodbye. He didn't rattle his saber too much by calling nations evil. He did call some South Americans "purveyors of false populism," the only phrase that really had that nice Spiro Agnew feel.

Dick Cheney and Nancy Pelosi stood behind him and grinned at times for different reasons. She read along the printed page and didn't stand to clap as often as the vice president. In the seats before him was perhaps one of his successors -- Hillary Clinton over here, Barack Obama over there, next to Ted Kennedy. (John McCain, oddly, missing).

He kept repeating things about Iran's supposed nuclear weapons plans that have already been disavowed by intelligence agencies. By now maybe people don't believe it when he says things like that anyway.

Debate Photo-Op

The key moment in the Presidential debate at Saint Anselm College in Manchster, N.H., Saturday was one that created something you hadn’t seen in the countless earlier debates this season, as well as something you couldn’t hear.

In a bit of fancy stage dressing between the six man Republican debate, the four Democratic candidates joined them on stage for what looked like one of those "good game" lineups after a game. There may have been more affection between the two parties than observers would have been led to believe, after each side had demonized the other day in and day out. Yet many had worked together in the Senate, or could just admire a straight out win, as Obama received handshakes and shoulderclasps for his win.

Things went on pretty long, with the audience continuing to applaud. And no microphones on stage were working though to catch their small talk, sincere or insincere. It could have been the best stuff of the debate.

Up in Manchester

Because only a couple of relatively sparsely populated states have the opportunity to cull presidential candidates, the political action is frenzied every four winters in frozen Iowa or New Hampshire.

In each place, for a period that now lasts more than a year, candidates pay all their attention, local TV stations get rich on advertising, phones never stop ringing with robocalls, political signs clutter the landscape and you can barely turn around without running into a would-be new leader of the free world.

I’ve had the habit of heading up to Manchester, N.H. weekends before the primaries just to sample the tight focus of American politics and the news media that follow them. There, in a hotel bar in 2004, Wolf Blitzer, Joe Lieberman operatives and all manner of print, wire and broadcast journalists all jammed into what seemed the only bar in town.

Back then there was a week between Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire, giving the kind of cushion the nation needs to refocus from one state they usually overlook to another.

This year, though, the New Hampshire primaries come only five days after the caucuses.

So on Friday there was still a lull in town, possibly because most people had flown in from Des Moines that morning after getting little sleep the night before following (or reacting) to the results.

A Dennis Kucinich bus slowly drove around main street, possibly serving as more of a billboard than transportation. There were so many political signs littering the streets that grabbing a few for souvenirs seemed an act of cleaning the environment.

While some bars operated blithely unaware of the political spotlight, JD’s Tavern at the Radisson was still pretty much the epicenter. Still, there were a lot of news people there but not many politicos. There is a unique way to signal last call at the bar though: the fire alarm went off (the kitchen exhaust fans had failed and the lobby was filled with smoke).

We walked to the car dodging answering fire trucks and icy snowbanks.

Next morning, expectations were lower, but down in the lobby eating the continental breakfast at the Homewood Suites out near the airport, who breezed through but Mike Huckabee, wearing his lucky red sweater. Not far away was his marquee sidekick, Chuck Norris. And Ed Rollins, once Reagan’s campaign guru, now working on the Huckabee campaign as well, toiled at a nearby table.

His wasn’t the only campaign there. A bus pulled up for Hillary Clinton volunteers too, all clad in green scarves to make a point (not sure what). With carloads of volunteers driving around planting huge Ron Paul signs, it was easy to see how locally, the activity can fade into the background like snowbanks.

The Chuck Norris Factor

The secret of Mike Huckabee’s win in the Iowa caucuses Thursday may have been stated in three words: Walker, Texas Ranger.

Third place finisher on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton may have had both Bill Clinton and Madeline Albight flanking her. But when the Huckabee took his stage for his victory speech, who was peeking over his shoulder? Chuck Norris.

As Huckabee trolled New Hampshire for votes, who came with him, swelling crowds with young people who thought him just an internet myth?

Chuck Norris.

Is there a man so tough as to command his own subset of humor, best set up in the Chuck Norris Facts website?

Some of the current “facts” are these:

• There is no chin behind Chuck  Norris beard. There is only another fist.
• Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
• Chuck Norris doesn’t read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
• If you have five dollars and Chuck Norris has five dollars, Chuck Norris has more money than you.
• There is no CTRL button on Chuck Norris’ computer. Chuck Norris is always in control.

Huckabee isn’t unaware of this burgeoning strain of humor. Indeed, he repeated a few of the lines straightfaced in one of his campaign ads in which he was joined by The Man himself, who topped the usual “I approved this message” with a fist-flying “Chuck Norris Approved.”

And what about the real facts on Chuck Norris?

• Karate teacher to the Osmonds
• Urged into acting by Steve McQueen
• Co-starred with Bruce Lee in “Return of the Dragon”
• Starred in “Delta Force” and “Missing in Action” series of films.
• Wrote and starred in “Invasion U.S.A.”
• Starred, was executive producer and wrote five episodes of “Walker, Texas Ranger.”
• Campaigned for George Bush.
• Is 67 years old.

Obama may have Oprah, but having Chuck Norris on your side is incalculable.