Matt Towery:

Notes From The CNN/YouTube Debate

By Matt Towery

(11/30/07) Imagine our surprise (and pride) when one of Georgia’s most prolific bloggers, Buzz Brockway who writes for Georgia-based PeachPundit, bounced up on the screen in the media room as a questioner in the debate. We were seated close to friends/reporters from the Miami Herald, the St. Petersburg Times, the Tampa Tribune and the New York Post and immediately told them that we knew (or at least knew of) the questioner. Brockway should be proud because their reaction was basically “his is one of the best questions.” So congrats to Brockway and his colleagues at PeachPundit for giving a Georgia flair to the debate.

For those who watched our coverage of the spin room, let me be the first to say that I was more than a little rattled when the guy we dubbed “the fat man” pushed hard into me and then moments later shoved a Mike Huckabee aide to the ground. But I must say, after ten years of providing television analysis in all sorts of nice studios, I now realize why I provide analysis! I finally got to watch my description of the altercation with the “fat man” as we called him. I have to say my wife had me doubled over laughing when she said it sounded like the old SNL skit with Eddie Murphy when he played the character Buckwheat and was “shot”. I don’t know what was funnier, the SNL skit or my description!

The man, who writes for what appears to be his own online paper, made us a little more nervous than the scene might portray (and I sure as heck made it sound that way). But here’s the story people don’t know. This guy appeared to have no press credentials other than the press pass issued by CNN. None of us could see a note pad, pen, recorder, camera, or any evidence that he was a reporter. And believe me, he was shoving us around as if was going after Huckabee one way or another. I’ve read his version which has appeared in the press and on television stations across the country. I’ll just say that, in my opinion, his description did not match the force we saw when hitting the young Huckabee aide and we really thought we had a first class nut on our hands. What our viewers couldn’t hear (because of my “Buckwheat has been shot” description) was the intense argument going on in front of us and the scuffle the man had with the police which we could not get to (because of a lack of mobility).

Still, it reminds me why I do analysis, not live on the scene interviews! My narrative notwithstanding, Jimmy Meehan of our company captured the best video of the incident —hats off to Jimmy who works fulltime for our company and is attending law school in the evenings. And thanks to Governor Huckabee and Chuck Norris for giving us really good interviews.

I want to give real credit to the staff of our polling division, and to our Florida Editor, Gary Reese, who ironically stayed in Atlanta to oversee and coordinate our debate survey for the Florida Chamber of Commerce of undecided voters who watched the CNN debate and participated in a post debate poll as well as instant poll of Republicans in Iowa who watched the debate. The data had to be collected, tabulated, and weighted with lightening speed. And the results from both polls showed a clear victory for Governor Huckabee. News of the polls spread across the spin room and national papers, broadcast media and the Florida press carried the results. A special thanks to Kyrce Culbertson and Jeff Shusterman as well as Atlanta data collector extraordinaire John Garst who helped on this project.

The one most unreported event of the debate was the fact that the press virtually ignored every candidate’s “spin” location other than that of Mike Huckabee. Tom Baxter pointed out that Ron Paul basically hijacked what was a small spin for Fred Thompson and was surrounded by a large group of…well, we aren’t really sure, but we assume reporters. One person we know was a real reporter is Baxter, who knows coverage of presidential politics as well as any journalist in the nation.

Finally, a big thanks to Grayson Daughters, who spent years with ABC and now seems a master of the internet. Her assistance was invaluable. She and Tom filmed the protests outside the debate hall and we will post those soon.

I won’t keep the debate coverage going much longer, but given that my nationally syndicated newspaper column originates out of Jacksonville’s Florida Times-Union, it was natural that I write about the debate. I promise, after that, it’s back to other matters. And as usual, thanks to Dick Pettys in Atlanta (who keeps the Gold Dome golden), Hastings Wyman in Washington, Lee Bandy in South Carolina, Gary in Florida, and our other editors and writers for their great work as we head into what truly will be “crunch time” for our political coverage.