Carl Cameron courtesy Fox News Channel
When the 2008 presidential campaign is over, one of the lasting TV images will be Fox News Channel chief political correspondent Carl Cameron cruising along the nation's highways in its Election Link vehicle, which looks like one of the channel's flashy screen graphics on four wheels. Cameron gave The Biz his take on life along the campaign trail in between filing reports from South Carolina, where primaries will be held on Jan. 19 and 26.
TVGuide.com: You were once the political director at WMUR-TV in New Hampshire, where the presidential campaign is the story all year round.
Carl Cameron: One of my greatest claims to fame in my Channel 9 days was when the O.J. Simpson trial went to the jury. Every TV station in the world led with that, and WMUR at my insistence led with (then California Governor) Pete Wilson dropping out of the presidential race.
TVGuide.com: What's your take on the surprise results in the primary in the state?
Cameron: One of the things I said so incessantly, in fact some people asked me to stop repeating it, is sometimes New Hampshire likes to reverse what Iowa does. You can never rule that out. Because of the nature of the holidays, because of the nature of the weekend between it and the fact that there were three debates that weekend, you just couldn't trust the polls.
TVGuide.com: What is life like in the Election Link vehicle?
Cameron: Cramped. Exciting. Unpredictable. We're sitting in the passenger seat of a car. There's a camera on the dashboard, a camera on the roof and a regular camera, which we can actually remove from the vehicle, that uses a Wi-Fi connection and can go around for a quarter-of-a-mile radius. We've been able to interview candidates in their buses while they're moving. In the past that had to be done on tape. In the Election Link vehicle we've done it live. One is already here in South Carolina and another is on its way from New Hampshire.
TVGuide.com: You've been covering campaigns for Fox since 1996. What's been the major difference for you in this presidential cycle?
Cameron: The sheer length of it. My producer Jake Gibson and I went out in November of 2006 right after the midterm election. We covered Iowa governor Tom Vilsack's announcement. We rode with him from New Hampshire on his announcement day to Iowa in his plane — in the calendar year of 2006. Of course, he was out of the race in January. We were on the road then, three weeks out of the month. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 42 or 43 weeks of the 52 weeks of 2007 we were on the road, and that was absolutely unprecedented. It's a function of the money, of the compression (of the primary and caucus season) and that you have no sitting vice president or president running. That hasn't happened in 80 years. It's historic.
TVGuide.com: With so much saturation coverage on cable news and the Internet, are political TV ads breaking through the way they used to in this campaign?
Cameron: Yes and no. Ads don't break through in Iowa and New Hampshire as much as they do elsewhere. In Iowa and New Hampshire the people who viewed those ads, in great number, have actually seen the candidates in person and often have the opportunity at town meetings to hear them explain this stuff. The attacks that end up in commercials are actually things that have been part of the news cycle, in some cases as much several months in advance. So the attack ads don't do as much damage in New Hampshire because the voters know what the reality is, because they live it. In later states, where the voters are not going get exposed to the actual candidates, those ads really cut deep.
TVGuide.com: Tell me some of the more unusual things you've seen on the campaign trail this time around that you haven't seen before.
Cameron: I'm seen Mike Huckabee get set up to play with a band and stall while the band went out to its van to get sheet music and shuttle it to him behind closed doors to see if he could play it. I've seen Mitt Romney talk with staff and friends about the relative merits of having a hair out of place or being mussed up or not. This is not unique, but it's kind of like the thing you'd see at the end of a movie. Because John McCain was tortured, his arms don't raise above shoulder height. It makes it difficult for him to put on his jacket. I've seen him struggle with his coat and a staffer or his wife had to come help him.
TVGuide.com: Do you ever get home during the campaign?
Cameron: Yeah, I do. I've not been home for a month now. Normally I get home every week or two for a day and a half or two. I have a couple of teenaged sons in Maryland. When I go home it's basically to get off the plane, go see the kids for the weekend, and get [back] on a plane and go.
TVGuide.com: Otherwise they're seeing you on TV most of this year just like everybody else.
Cameron: We've mastered doing homework with iChat — video conferencing on laptops.
TVGuide.com: How do you stay so charged up all the time?
Cameron: There is absolutely no story anywhere in the world that is this significant. It's the struggle for leadership in the free world. That's better than any adrenaline or Red Bull you could possibly imagine.
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