The run up to the presidential debate left me wary of how volunteering for the actually event would turn out. I was right to be wary.
I arrived on campus at 2:00 p.m. to get my credentials. After walking to three different security checkpoints I was told to go back to the first one and they would let me in. I got my credentials and then was told to meet in the spin room in an hour. The spin room is basically a media room where candidates and their reps come after the debate to answer media’s questions. The room gets so crazy that our job is to literally hold signs over the reps heads so that the media can find them. I had the chance to hold a sign over Howard Dean. He was a pretty neat guy. Nice for the most part and his handlers are top notch. They even had him sign my sign as he was leaving.
He did an interview for CNN.com and if you watch it I am in the background.
http://www.cnn.com/video//video/politics/2007/11/15/long.howard.dean.interview.cnn?iref=videosearch
I also got to meet Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich and Joe Biden. All were very personable. It was an experience of a lifetime!
However CNN were complete jerks. I was stuck in that room for almost 8.5 hours and there was no food, no water and I never even got a thank you! What the heck!! Our “boss” Priscilla told us no one could leave until the cleanup was done and just kept ordering us to do random things. After an hour and a half of cleaning up and being the only student to still stick around I took off, still without even a thanks.
Thanks CNN. For performing exactly as I had expected you to. For showing us that you could care less about those who wanted to help.
