The time: 7:05 pm. The place: Mother’s Den. Perusing Delaware Online, I came upon an article (more like a fuckin’ press release, which makes me question the Journal’s guidelines for reporting “news”) detailing a “free” dinner at Bancroft Elementary School in Wilmington hosted by Lt. Gov. John Carney. The problem? The dinner started at 6 pm. Within 30 seconds of reading the story I had my camera in hand and was in my pick-up heading downtown. Google Maps told me it would take roughly 10 minutes to get there. I hesitantly parked my beast in a not-so-pleasant part of town and walked into the school, surrounded by generic Carney-for-Governor campaign signs as well as “prettier” hand-drawn signs reading “We heart John” and “(Picture of Donkey) endorsed John Carney!”
Dressed in a Big Dogs t-shirt and a nasty pair of shorts, I stood in the back waiting for my chance to follow up with Lt. Gov Carney on the issue of the eminent domain bill from last night. I waited through about half-an-hour of questions from a mostly Black audience that was wholly engaged in what the lieutenant governor was saying. I, myself, was impressed. Aside from the too-frequent times Carney cut-off questioners and his annoying penchant for providing answers to questions that weren’t even asked, he seemed truly engaged in the issues and totally comfortable answering some of the pointed questions. He’s definitely a politician, though. He has a tendency to prattle on with no end in sight and should really work on containing his answers to many of these questions within the confines of an egg timer.
While standing in the back waiting my turn, I became aware that my presence wasn’t appreciated. I think the camera was a dead giveaway. I won’t say anything other than I wasn’t welcomed. But I did stay. I approached Lt. Gov. Carney, who took lots of time after the meeting to speak with potential voters, and he nervously asked me “Again?” referring, no doubt, to my ambush of him at Legislative Hall last night.
I had the camera queued and was ready to go. I decided to try a new tack, though. I decided to use honey rather than vinegar to get Carney to answer my questions. Click the link below and you’ll be transported to the video. Sorry it’s not YouTube. Here goes:
Post-mortem: I’m going to be honest. I could have been an asshole, which would have been a lot more entertaining. I could have ambushed the lieutenant governor. But it didn’t work last night and it certainly wouldn’t work tonight. The problem with doing an interview in this fashion is I realized I only had about 5 minutes of memory card, but I could’ve asked him 20 minutes worth of questions. Another problem presents itself because I didn’t have any questions written down and I was thinking of follow-ups as Carney was speaking. Inevitably, many of the things I would have liked to ask got pushed to the side due to obvious time constraints and the lack of my brain to be able to keep up with my addled thoughts. Either way, I wasn’t terribly impressed with Carney’s answer re: “Well, it’s never been used before, so why do we need a law.” I wanted to call him out on that but the conversation progressed in another direction and I was unable to remember that question.
Of course, this is DWA and I had to end the interview on a ridiculous, light note. Please leave comments. Video isn’t exactly my thing, but it’s something I’d definitely like to integrate more.
Posted by Mike Matthews in First State Filth