On the road (again)
By Jeff Davies | April 18, 2005

Ever been in a cattle barn?

Then you may have some idea what it's like to be herded on and off a campaign bus during an election.

Not that I'm complaining. If you're a lifelong political junkie, as I am, then you thrive on this stuff.

Oh, of course, you may say, it isn't work at all…just a bunch of reporters swapping stories as they ride through the mountains, pouring out at every stop, getting the latest handout from the candidate and putting it in their own words. Then it's off to the bar…

You've all seen the pictures of Mackenzie King campaigning off the back of a train or W.A.C. Bennett cutting a ribbon to open a power dam before a flock of attentive reporters. But times have changed since that era of whistle-stop tours.

A political campaign these days is a tightly organized event.

In B.C, most campaign days start and finish in Vancouver. Reporters may climb into the bus at 7:00, head for the airport, fly across the province, board another bus for the first of half a dozen campaign stops…file breaking stories from the field (every hour if you work in radio) then fly back to Vancouver, where the REAL work begins: file the 'big picture' stories that recap the day's events, try to analyze them, bring in some context, tell the public what it all means. On a busy day, that might take until the wee small hours. Then at 7:00 the next morning you do it all over again….

I still have vivid memories of my first campaign launch in 1996 with then-premier Glen Clark.

Talking about hitting the ground running. We got the budget around 9:00 a.m. At 12:30 Clark dropped the writ. The reporters who happened to be gathered at government house were herded onto the campaign bus right there. I didn't even have time to get my toothbrush. They just told us "this is it: the campaign has begun. We're heading for the ferry terminal to go to a rally in Vancouver."

And that's how it was for the next 28 days: six, seven, eight events a day, usually culminating with a raucous rally in the evening. And that's the sort of routine I expect this time as well.

The details of an election campaign are often shrouded in secrecy. On Monday the 18th, one day before the campaign began, we still didn't know what time the next morning the premier was planning to visit the lieutenant governor! We did know the premier's campaign bus was to leave Victoria in the evening at 7:00, but that's about it.

The handlers generally don't tell the reporters here the campaign bus or plane is headed until the afternoon before – if then. They like to keep everything tightly controlled. But even then the wheels can fall off, almost literally at times.

There was the occasion during the last campaign when Ujjal Dosanjh's campaign bus couldn't get under an overpass. The driver had to back up and take another route. That seemed to become a metaphor for the NDP campaign. Gordon Campbell's bus, meanwhile, was surrounded by protestors on East Hastings Street in Vancouver on the last day. They pounded on the sides and burned effigies of the Liberal leader.

We can probably count on a few more few spontaneous moments like that this year in what is sure to be a highly choreographed Liberal campaign.

Life on the campaign trail: it can be fun, exciting, physically and mentally draining and, at its best, a chance to be a witness to history. But for most reporters, once every four years is enough...