Campaigns & Elections' Politics - February 2008 - (Page 12) Some True Long-Shots b y Joan na Ro u fa We lc h “ f Hillary wins, she’s not gonna be able to pick me as k her vice president. And if I win, I won’t be able to pick her.” I was sitting in the control booth at XM Radio’s POTUS ’08 station, listening to one of the presidential candidates. John Edwards, you’re thinking? Maybe Barack Obama? Try Henry Hewes. A New York Democrat, he’s lucky to earn a handful of votes in any given primary. Still, we take our politics seriously at POTUS and were glad to have him call into the show. But when host Joe Mathieu responded, earnestly,“So I guess you’re looking at this as Sen. Clinton’s loss,” I lost it. Welcome to the bizarre bubble that is XM’s 24/7 coverage of the presidential race.With all that airtime, I sometimes scramble to book guests. So last November, I came up with a brilliant plan:Why not interview every last candidate? Joe set up the premise perfectly: “It’s part of our promise on POTUS ’08 to provide unfiltered coverage of what is happening on the campaign trail and bring you voices you don’t typically hear in the major media.” The resulting segments made for some very unusual radio. ts Take Alab bama Republican Hugh p Cort. He exp cts to be on the ballot pec o e in more than a dozen states, and n told Joe that surely “enough t’s to win the no omination as soon as we get roll ling.” I 4% 48% 12 Politics Portion of Americans who say politicians are the most honorable profession —Theodora A. Blanchfield nchfi d ws poll) o (Source: FOX News poll) Joanna Roufa Welch is a proJo ducer with XM Radio’s POTUS ’08 channel. February 2008 ILLUSTRATION: TRAVIS FOSTER Those who believe politicians are the least honorable (Full disclosure: 28% say journalists alists s are the least honorable. Ouch!) That’s when things started to go downhill. Cort launched into a four-minute monologue about illegal immigration, balancing the budget, bombing Iran and his vow to make his first executive action a pair of bans on abortion and homosexual marriage. Finally, a wide-eyed Joe had to cut in. “Let’s just take a second,” he said.“Don’t forget to breathe. You’ve got a long way to the White House, my man.” Second-grade math is at the center of Ohio independent candidate Steve Adams’ strategy. “I’ve got a place on my web site where you can register as a supporter,” he told us during his call-in. “And right now I figured that if you take all those supporters and if they just told one person, it would double overnight. And if we did that every day, I would have enough to have won the 2004 election in about 17 days.” Right. And then there was Jack Shepard, the “Republican candidate for peace.” I’m pretty sure his felony conviction would disqualify him from taking office. It’s a long story, but it has all the best Hollywood film elements: sexual misconduct, unauthorized possession of pain pills, prison, arson, loss of a medical license, undercover counterterrorism. But it can’t co be very easy to run a presidentia campaign from Italy, where al he’s lived most of his adult life. Joe: “You realize a story like this would make o z it very difficult for you to be taken seriously as y r a credible candida ate.” Jack: “But the t thing is, I believe in destiny.” A rt After these chats took us through most of the winter, we finally endf ed our little adventure. Or so we r though until I got a nasty e-mail ht, from someone I’d overlooked and s calls fr rom even lesser-known candidates. I’ve only been able to come up with one solution: If you can’t beat o ’em, join ’em—especially since ,j i it seem all you need to run for ms presid is a pulse. So when you dent head to the polls, vote for the d true underdog.Vote Welch. e
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