Issue date: 12/7/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Doug Klembara Presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney, speaks Thursday at Bush Library about his Mormon faith. Romney's speech 'Faith in America' explained to the public his stance on his faith and the role it will have if he wins the election. [Click to enlarge]

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is based on a reporter's first experience covering a presidential campaign event.

For most, experiencing the speech that has been considered the most important in the political career of Mitt Romney was limited to a small screen, with the image of the 60-year-old man standing before a line of flags in a gray suit and blue tie, calmly explaining his Mormon faith to the American people.

Behind the scenes, it was an exercise in organizing chaos.

The day of reporting the Romney speech began at 7 a.m., to make it to the check-in table before the 7:30 deadline for media. The long line of journalists waiting to enter was a veritable who's who of the Washington press corps - White House correspondents, political reporters, journalists whose work often made the nightly news or claim space above the fold are waiting behind a reporter for a college newspaper in line outside the George Bush Library Complex.

A few people who could be considered journalists, if the term is used quite loosely, such as the outspoken CNN commentator and radio host, Glenn Beck, were there, too. Since he was a V.I.P. guest, he didn't have to wait and walked right in.

Inside, the typically quiet area used for lectures and discussions with President George H.W. Bush was transformed - and looked like a place where news was being made. Invited guests - the only individuals let in besides the media - were escorted by student docents into a banquet room to meet with the Bush and Romney families and have breakfast. Correspondents were talking to the anchors in New York City in their live-shots, as burly men with earpieces swiftly passed by.

An official at the Bush Library said that 65 news organizations were set to attend the speech, descending on College Station from Washington, D.C., and New York and as far away as Japan. Why the Bush Library? I asked. "I have no idea," he replied laughingly. "The only thing I can guess is his friendship with President Bush."

All the journalists who traveled to cover the speech were herded like well-dressed sheep once inside. By 7:20, they were relegated to a filing room in the rear of the library's conference center with a massive projector screen showing the podium where Romney was to make his big speech a few hours later. On the screen, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearm agents with black Labrador bomb-sniffing dogs made their way across the stage, smelling out the lectern and flags. (There were nine flags on the podium at 7:30, and it looked asymmetrical. By 8:30, another flag was found to even it out.)

Once the auditorium was swept for security, the media room was next - so the herd was brought outside once again. Standing out in the coldness of a College Station winter, which must have felt like spring to the East Coast media types there, the big name folks talked among themselves and had prime access to the campaign representatives. The reporters from The New York Times and CNN were schmoozing with Romney bigwigs, nonchalantly jotting down notes as they spoke. Everyone else just played around with their Blackberries, because it looked like there was about a two-to-one ratio of handhelds to people.

As the press waited, a lone protester stood outside the library with a sign that read, "Joseph lied," referring to Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism.

The sweep was done, and the journalists were brought back in. (The V.I.P. guests never had to leave their breakfast table. Big surprise there.)

At 8:45, the reporters were back in the filing room. Romney read the speech verbatim from a script, and by that point the script was already making its way around the room. Reporters started writing their stories to be filed, quoting Romney from a speech that hadn't even taken place yet. At 9, the reporters and photographers started making their way and taking their places inside the auditorium. The auditorium had been transformed like the rest of the conference center; the back three rows had been covered by a line of scaffolding, making a giant loft of cameras, lights and cable reporters talking, once again, to their counterparts at the anchor desk leading up to the speech.

They all took their seats, cramped along the back few rows with their laptops, notebooks and a copy of the speech to read along with. And they waited. Stuck in their seats, they sat and watched as the invited guests flowed into the room. The room quickly filled up with mostly white, wealthy looking individuals dressed to a T, and sprinkled with the occasional sloppily dressed boy or girl who looked like they got a day off from school or was one of about 20 minorities in the audience.

By 9:25, everyone had taken their seats and were chatting, observing and waiting. A couple minutes later, the chatter stopped: Barbara Bush and Ann Romney had made their entrance along with four of the five Romney boys, and former President George Bush made his introduction.

By 9:30, Mitt Romney made his way to the podium, the cameras went live and the rest was history.

Rick Rojas, a sophomore political science major, is enterprise editor.

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