Christopher Anderson

Most campaign events are more of the same ol’ schtick. But now and again, there are some historic events out on the trail. This one came in the form of the Ex and (looking more likely) the Next. For the first time during this election, President Bill Clinton and Senator Barack Obama appeared on stage together.

Bill Clinton is good. He is a master at political theater. After he made his case for Barack, he took a stool beside him and proceeded to stare at Barack as if he were witnessing the second coming. The intensity of his gaze was even more impressive than Barack’s speech. Just look at his face in the picture.

Photographing these events are a little like being on a Formula 1 pit crew. Photographers are rotated through to the “buffer” zone, a cordoned off area between the stage and the crowd. You have 2 to 5 minutes to make your pictures. After making a handful of pictures of Bill and Barack, I turned around and found myself looking back at the faces in the crowd, and their expressions were not unlike Bill’s.

October 23, 2008

Washington

Christopher Anderson and the disappearing Republicans.

Senate offices, Washington, D.C.

Today I went to visit my niece, who is a staffer for a Republican Senator, at her office in the Senate building. I asked her if she and her colleagues are preparing for a mass exodus. “We don’t really like to go there,” she said uncomfortably. “There might be a lot of people out of jobs and looking, and there are just no new jobs in Washington.”

I asked her if the stereotypical image I have of the Republican staffer will be replaced by a bunch of hippies and socialists. She said, “no,” assuring me that the political hacks on both sides were equally “square and geeky.”

Change we can believe in...

Discarded files outside of the offices of Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (above). Cafeteria in the Senate office building, where lobbyists and staffers often eat lunch together (upper right). A sign in the Senate office building (right).

October 22, 2008

Washington

Christopher Anderson walks among the tourists.

I am in Washington D.C. because I was previously obligated to be here to edit a story that I’m currently working on at National Geographic magazine. Seemed to me to be a good opportunity to take a look at the end of what (according to the experts and polls) could be the end of a Republican Era in the Nation’s Capitol.

There isn’t really much news to cover now; Congress is not in session, most of the politicians have gone elsewhere. The city kinda feels a little empty. I have been here many times for work, but I have never had the time to visit the monuments. So, on Sunday afternoon when I arrived, I went for a stroll down past the White House to the Washington Monument and on to the Lincoln Memorial and the moving Vietnam Memorial.

As I walk among the other tourists, I can't help thinking full-circle-ish, cliché thoughts standing in front of the massive statue of Lincoln (the President who ended slavery), where M.L.K. made his famous “I Have a Dream” speech and how the kid getting her picture made in front of him will not be able to imagine a world when an Obama could not even dream of running for president – much like how I could not imagine a world where a Barack Obama could not even vote.