Up Close, with Peter Sage: Lindsey Graham at an Ice Cream Place. As likable as Andy of Mayberry

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Lindsey Graham at an Ice Cream Place. As likable as Andy of Mayberry

This gathering was an open-to-all gathering at an ice cream place in a strip mall, one that has the distinction of taking the liquid ice cream base and freezing it before your eyes with liquid nitrogen.

Anyone interested in attending could have known about the visit. Two different media sources, a cable news station that focuses on New England news, plus a local ABC station, have websites with "candidate trackers" posting all candidate events. One does not need to be an insider, just someone willing to Google "Candidates in New Hampshire."

Here he shook hands with kids in middle school, told their mother how wonderful it was she is a nurse, asked the employees if they liked their work, shook hands with the host owner of the ice cream shop, a man who is a member of the VFW. He ate some ice cream and pronounced it delicious. In short, he mostly wandered around being folksy.

Some media interns from Emerson College (tuition $38,000/year, according to a graduate of the program) asked Graham some questions on abortion (he's against it in all cases after the 20th week, but is okay with the exemption for rape and incest and the life of the mother--exceptions some fellow candidates reject); some questions on climate change (he says it is real, and that humans are causing a rise in carbon dioxide); a question on Keystone pipeline (Canada has lots of great oil up there and if it does not come south to us in the Gulf it will go west to China) and a few other questions.

I will show some photos. As you see, there was a strong presence of media.

Yeah, he has small feet. Just something I noticed.

I am enclosing a photo of Lindsey Graham's foot, mostly to be funny and to make the point that this political vacation gives me some observations I would not get from the media. Lindsey Graham is short in stature, maybe 5 feet, five inches. He has small feet, His height and foot size have no importance whatever, but it is something i wouldn't have noticed watching him at a desk on Face the Nation.