This is Part Two of a three part series. You can find Part One here.
With the Presidential campaign winding down, the debates have moved to the back burner. However, by working some connections and using whatever resources I could marshall, I was able to finagle my way in close to the debate preparations for both candidates. After being forced to withhold what I witnessed until after the debates were finished, I am now finally free to reveal what I saw in the days leading up to each contest. The following is my behind the scenes look at how each candidate prepared for the second debate.
Debate #2: Obama Camp – Williamsburg, VA
10:00 AM: With the team prepping at a riverfront resort, I was forced to watch from afar, stationing myself on a dinghy, and resorting to high-tech audio and video surveillance equipment.
Reeling from the President’s performance in the first debate, his team is still locked in stunned silence. Awaiting the candidate’s arrival, you can sense their trepidation. Before the first debate it looked as if the President was headed for a solid victory. Now polls show him in a dead heat with his challenger. The question of how to free Obama from the malaise he displayed last week hangs over the room.
Campaign Aide #1: “Maybe we should try something drastic.”
Campaign Aide #2: “Like what?”
Campaign Aide #1: “I dunno; a defibrillator, mainline caffeine, a spine?
Campaign Aide #3 (waking up from a nap): “Just imagine Queen Elizabeth naked. Always works for me.
Campaign Aides #1 and #2 exchange questioning, disgusted looks.
Debate #2: Romney Camp – Boston, MA
9:00 AM: To get inside the premises I had to dress up as a statue of a colonial-era Minuteman. The makeup is really itchy. Still, I persevere in my quest.
The Romney Camp appears to be suffering from a post-debate hangover. Which, being Mormons, means they drank themselves silly on milk and cranberry juice. The combination served to give everyone a sickly pink mustache.
Romney soon enters the room, Senator Rob Portman at his heels. Portman has become a sort of shadow of Romney at this point, apparently thinking that if he hangs around long enough and close enough some of that first debate magic will rub off on him. Or at least a few spare hundred dollar bills. Luckily for Romney, Senator Portman is such a boring act himself that he a) makes Romney seem like the life of the party, and b) was a perfect representation of President Obama for the first debate. It remains to be seen whether that can hold up this time around. For right now, though, the Romney camp is starting this prep session with a benediction, a tape recording of the Tabernacle choir, and an hour and a half of gloating over their performance in the first debate.
Debate #2: Obama Camp – Williamsburg, VA
11:30 AM: Obama finally enters the prep room, accompanied by Jay-Z’s “Big Pimpin’”, which is blaring out of the room’s sound system. He’s wearing the familiar pre-match robe that boxer’s don before stepping into the ring, and he has two college-age looking campaign aides rubbing his shoulders and occasionally dousing him with water as he jogs in place. It looks like the fallout from the first debate has awoken the man from his slumber.
Soon, debate prep partner John Kerry enters the room and takes his place behind one of the two podiums that have been set up. The President steps behind the other. Another campaign aide goes through the preliminaries, playing the part of the debate moderator, and moments later they’re off. Kerry tries to take the same centrist line Romney did in the first debate, but Obama quickly counters with a long string of facts that reject most of his opponent’s newly renovated policy agenda, punctuating many of the exchanges with a firmly shouted, “Liar!” for emphasis.
You can feel the tension that had infected the Obama Camp quickly ebb.
Debate #2: Romney Camp – Boston, MA
1:00 PM: Mitt’s son, Tagg, has entered the room, wheeling in a cart of non-alcoholic champagne. After some discussion amongst the group about whether such libations are allowed, they decide to run with it. Several of the bottle get shaken up and sprayed about the room. Defying the laws of nature, the candidate’s hair remains immaculately in place.
1:45 PM: There is some talk around the room that maybe they should start with the actual preparations, to which Romney responds, “All I have to do this time is talk about how, with his government salary, President Obama is just another one of those forty-seven percenters who is suckling off the government teat. That’ll score.”
One of the few reasonable people in the room remarks upon how Mr. Romney himself is desperately trying to gain the same position, and wouldn’t that then make him part of the same group.
Romney’s responds with his usual twisted logic, “Well, no, because I would be making it into the White House as a tool of large business interests and, concordantly, would be making most of my money off all the investments in my blind trust.” He finished off that line of reasoning with an awkward nod and a wink. The staffer who pointed out his hypocrisy was fired soon after the afternoon’s session came to a close.