May 27, 2008
On The Trail: "La Prensa Con El Presidente"
MOROVIS, P.R. - Following Bill Clinton is always interesting. But nothing like this.
For weeks, a colleague told me to dread the former president's return to Puerto Rico. Without a press bus or spokesman, our style of being embedded has always been on the fly. We have to drive ourselves to events and race out when he starts to shake hands at the ropeline, hoping to get a head start to the next site. Through the desolate roads of South Dakota last weekend, we used an outside power outlet at a closed gas station to power our laptops to send video near Dallas, population 141.
Today's schedule requires much the same. But add windy roads, streets with no names and a language we don't speak, and it gets downright difficult.
President Clinton and Chelsea have five events scheduled today. We don't have addresses for all of them, and some are just highway numbers. The streets are built for one way traffic, but the cars flow both ways, and we seem to be the only ones slowing down to avoid a collision or a fall down a cliff. Finding a Secret Service agent has become the "Where's Waldo" of our day.
We have been late to events because my rudimentary Spanish has only gotten us so far with the cops blocking the streets. But I have learned a new phrase, "La prensa con el presidente." Translation: "The press with the president."
I am on the porch of a modest house that has been coverted into a German beer garden in a small Puerto Rican city. Hispanic men in lederhosen intermingle with Secret Service and local police, as the former president shakes hands and heads back behind the bar to be given a bottle of Grey Goose vodka.
He doesn't speak the language, so the campaign has adapted. Gone are the long policy speeches he gives on the mainland, which would be cumbersome with or without the aid of a translator. Today, father and daughter toured an observatory funded by Cornell University, ate ice cream in Lareas and shook hands at the junction of two highways.
But most of the day has been spent in the car, either racing ahead or falling behind the motorcade. While playing this game with the president is usually easier, at least today I get to do it while munching fried plantains.
(NBC/NJ's MATTHEW BERGER)
Posted at 04:15 PM
Comments
So, does this mean you'll support the renewed (and apparently un-ending) drive for Puerto Rican statehood? According to those promoting the idea in Congress, we apparently have to have Puerto Rico keep voting on a "binding" referendum on statehood until the voters in PR finally decide to vote in favor of statehood; all the other votes in which the voters rejected statehood don't count. On second thought, maybe the P.R. primary is more than just an after-thought?
Pining for Chuck Todd | 05.28.08 09:06 AM
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