A bit too expensive for us

Thursday, August 14, 2008 2:52 PM

Any newspaper that assigns a reporter to cover Senator John McCain in his bid for the Presidency this fall better have some deep pockets. It ain't going to be cheap.

Last winter, on what we thought was an open invitation from the McCain camp, a reporter joined him on the McCain Straight Talk Express in Lebanon for an interview while the bus made its way to its next campaign stop 25 miles away in Newport.

As it turned out, our reporter didn't actually go one-on-one with the Arizona senator. There were four other members of the media planted in chairs around a table. But we settled for that because it was probably as close to McCain as one of our reporters could hope to get.

Well, about a month later, a bill arrived in the mail from McCain's financial headquarters in Virginia. It seems the charge of riding the McCain's Straight Talk Express some 25 miles was well over $100.

Now, let's give the McCain folks credit. Before our reporter boarded the big bus she was asked for her personal credit card information. Of course, that was yet another surprise.

Naturally, when the bill surfaced it quickly made it to the editor's desk. With a friendly telephone call the McCain representative agreed to forget about the charge. That was a very professional solution.

Just Thursday, a letter came into the newsroom from the McCain headquarters in Arlington, Va., indicating the anti was being jacked up a bit for the general election campaign in the fall.

According to the letter, this request would cover any media member traveling with the McCain campaign, probably on a daily basis. Here are two paragraphs from that letter:

"As the general election approaches, the demand for on time travel payment is as important as ever. The campaign expects an increase in the level of travel with the conclusion of the Republican National Convention and believes this will reflect on your organization in the form of increased weekly travel costs. To ensure your staff can travel with the campaign during the election cycle, we kindly ask you to raise the credit limit on your corporate and personal credit cards due to these increased costs.

"We believe a fifty thousand dollar monthly credit line per person is a safe estimate of what to expect in the coming months. This estimate includes air and ground travel plus any miscellaneous costs that may arise throughout the week (food, power, internet, etc.)."

Needless to say, there will be no reporters from this newspaper tagging along with the McCain campaign any time soon.

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