generally, in indiana, we are pretty independent folks. as with our infrastructure program, we have moved ahead with whatever congress does. we make sure we operate in responsible -- a responsible and businesslike way. we passed a major infrastructure bill and if the federal government helps us out, great and if they don't, we will continue to march. we are working with water also. >> i think democrats should control congress because i think our country needs to swing more left or progressive, particularly with issues related to women -- women's ability to choose and a women's right to a safe workplace. thank you. >> voices from the states, part of c-span's 50 capitals tour. on the day senator john mccain died, a group of

photojournalists talked about covering john mccain on the campaign trail and photographing other presidential candidates during the decade. winter,s included damon carolyn caster from the a post -- associated press. president obama's former campaign press secretary ben lebolt. >> good evening, everyone. how is everyone doing tonight? excellent. i am the education and public programs manager here at the annenberg space for photography. welcome to this evening's event, which is "deadlines to headlines," which is part of our roster in support of our newest exhibition. this exhibition, if you haven't seen it yet, it is closing in a few weeks, now is a good time. it tells the story of america's history through photography in the archives of the library of

congress, many which have never before been exhibited. through these photographs, we tell the stories of moments that shape america's history. tonight, we are focusing on presidential elections in the people who photograph them. each of the photographers have photographed presidential campaigns over the past decade. we will hear what it is like running alongside these candidates every step of the journey, and we will appreciate not just the newsworthiness but also the artistry of their photographs. moderating tonight's discussion is ben lebolt. he served on three presidential campaigns and he was deputy press secretary for barack obama's campaign for president, national press secretary for president obama's reelection campaign, and regional field director howard dean's campaign when he was fresh out of college. his prior work includes serving as press secretary for sherrod brown's campaign for senate, communications director for rahm emanuel's first campaign for

mayor, and white house spokesman to confirm justices to the supreme court. he currently serves at bully pulpit interactive where he oversees communication services.

part of a team of getty images finalists for the pillar surprise for breaking news -- pulitzer prize for breaking news photography. on mccain, mitt romney, barack obama, and many other candidates. carolyn caster is a photojournalist with the associated press. carolyn gerrit -- joined the ap in 2002 and moved to the seat in to washington,ed d.c. in 2009.

hurricanes,anos, miners.d coal she covered the presidential campaign of barack obama, hillary clinton, john mccain, as well as donald trump and her work now primarily deals with u.s. politics, including the trump white house. damon winter, staff photographer for the new york times. damon joined the times in 2007 as a photographer. previously he had been a photographer at the los angeles times. he covered a broad range of stories, including conflicts in israel and afghanistan, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in new york, the olympic games, and feature stories in cuba, russia, vietnam and elsewhere. he won a 2009 pulitzer prize and -- in feature photography for his memorable array of pictures deftly capturing multiple assets -- facets of barack obama's 2008

presidential campaign. a fun night for me, some familiar faces from the campaign trail as well as the government. we're going to go in sequence here. if i can turn my device on. and walk through each of the photographers' work on various presidential campaigns over the past few election cycles. chip, we will start with you. if you could take us through the moment, through the shot, take us through any memories that are appropriate from the campaigns you covered, and it is particularly poignant to see senator mccain tonight. chip: it is indeed. carolyn and i worked closely together on senator mccain's campaign in 2008. i guess i could speak for both of us, that we were very saddened of the news of his

death today. carolyn: yes. chip: i covered senator mccain in washington on capitol hill and in his presidential campaign, and closely after that in washington. both of us. i found him to be an incredible human being and a wonderful leader, definitely a maverick, which is what people called him. i think they called him a maverick because they couldn't think of anything else to call him. he was very good at upsetting people on the left and the right. i think that maverick is a great moniker for that. this image is from the 2008 campaign from moon township, pennsylvania. it was october 21, just a few weeks before the election. we as news photographers embed

into a campaign. we follow the candidate from city to city, event event, -- event to event sometimes 4, 5, 6 , events a day. we are photographing the candidate. we try as hard as we can to make sure that we are covering the event as an entirety, as a story, a beginning, middle, and end as best as we can. needless to say, if we are doing multiple cities and multiple events per day, those things can kind of become monotonous or repetitive. when an event happens like this happens and senator mccain has finished his speech, stepped off the stage, and he's working the rope line, a term that is very familiar to us. if you have covered political news, you know this is working to rope line. it just so happened at this moment, the room was very dark.

someone had a camera and this is before iphones were in everybody's pocket. we still had point-and-shoot cameras. the camera would emit a red beam. you probably remember. some of you remember this. the camera would emit a red beam to help you focus in the dark. then you would take the picture. i was shooting in hopes of synchronizing my photograph with the flash from someone else's camera. it didn't work out. instead, i got second place and i got the red beam lighting up his face. actually ended up looking kind of cool. ben: it was before the selfie era. chip: that is right. and speaking of synchronizing the flash, someone else's flash with my camera, that is what is happening here. the photographer on the left, -- is making a photograph and his flash is lighting up mitt romney as he kisses the bride.

it so happened that one of his rallies in sioux city, iowa, one of his events was the same time these folks were getting married -- at theel where his hotel. on his way out, he greeted the groom and bride and gave a good luck kiss. ben: did any of you cover both of the romney campaign's and -- 2008 and 2012 and have any observations on how that changed over time? chip: no. ben: you only got him when he was ready for prime time. chip: exactly. this is senator mccain. this is in plant city, florida, along the i-40 corridor which stretches from orlando over to tampa and bisects the state. if you want to win the white house, you have to win florida. if you want to win the white

house, you have to win florida. and if you want to win florida, you have to win the i-40 corridor. it is a farm stand, but they are famous for making these incredible strawberry shortcakes. i'm trying to remember the name of the place. parksdale farms. right on the side of the highway.

every presidential candidate, if they want to win the white house, they stop here and order a giant pile of strawberry shortcakes, and eat them. i had gone around behind the counter -- when a presidential campaign lands somewhere and you are not expecting it, it can be a shocking experience. buses pull up, secret service piles out. journalists pile out. ben piles out. all these people come out and land on you and it is chaos. depending on the temperament of the candidates, is he or she unpredictable, jovial, fearless, all of that can color the process. i ran around behind the counter and i noticed the screen above senator mccain's head was obscuring him. i ran around behind the counter and thought it was going to be a cool picture. it didn't work. i was a little disappointed. just as i was about to run back around to get him greeting people, he just leans down and pops his head through the window. much to my surprise and starts shaking hands with the folks who worked there and it ended up making a fun picture. ben: this reminds me of a particular type of event on the campaign trail, which we would call otr. you would have your several staged events throughout the course of the day, but aside from the rope line, you weren't really getting shots of the candidate with people. the campaigns would set up these unannounced stops where it

looked like the candidate was out on the road, interacting with normal people. sometimes just a handful of photographers would peel off for that type of photo opportunity. i always thought they were the most fun events because you are drinking coffee and eating pie and going to the little hotdog stand. [laughter] carolyn: good stuff. [laughter] chip: one of the things john mccain and mitt romney had in common was that they did not fear me. they were confident in who they were as candidates and more importantly, as people. they were comfortable with me going behind the scenes, so to speak. behind the scenes. when mr. mccain, senator mccain,

came onto the trail in support of governor romney in 2012, he climbed onto governor romney's bus and invited me along. so i was able to hang out with him while they were visiting and as you can see from this picture, senator mccain had some advice. he was giving it. in the background, that is one of the original campaign banners for mitt romney's dad, and he kept it hanging there on his bus. it was a really cool little piece of history that kind of ties the future and the past together. i was always working hard to try to include that in the photograph. ben: what is mitt drinking? chip: diet coke. [laughter] chip: caffeine free diet coke.

ben: senator mccain had a reputation of providing a lot of press access compared to other candidates starting with the straight talk express branding. did you feel that on the trail? than theel different campaigns -- other campaign to covered? carolyn: absolutely, for me, especially on the bus. we were talking about the bus earlier. he would invite us to the back of the bus and he would have a milkshake. he would be sucking on the milkshake and talking to you and it just felt a real open, easy thing. you are speeding down the highway on this bus, eating ice cream. he was very comfortable in his own skin. i remember the first thing he did when the campaign was over . he shed his secret service

detail and bought his own cup of coffee. he just wanted to be out and be himself. but anyway, yeah. [laughter] ben: what was happening here? chip: this is governor romney again. it was in march. we were still in primary season. i think it was before super tuesday or it may have been after. he had gone into one of these otr's that you were talking about, and he'd gone into a restaurant. one of the young ladies, this young woman here, jessica, she had made a sketch of governor romney and heard that he was coming. she went to the restaurant and presented him with the sketch and he signed it for her. again, just being himself, he

-- confident in who he is and what he is about he kind of held , at the sketch to say, really good, looks just like me. [laughter] ben: a question for all three of you. this was not an infrequent occurrence, people bringing gifts for candidates along the campaign trail. what is the weirdest thing you saw a voter bring a candidate on the campaign trail? >> this. [laughter] carolyn: there was a lot of art. a lot of people expressing themselves in very personal ways. i saw a melon. i think hillary got a melon. people grow things. things that mean something to them. that was the most wonderful way to see the country. you got to see people all over the country talking about and bringing things that were important to them. >> i'm trying to remember. i can't remember which campaign, but i remember somebody bringing

a pie to the front row of an event. presenting a pie. i don't know if they wanted to get a signature on the pie, but i thought that was pretty bizarre. >> we are hearing the food theme tonight. it is very hard to maintain your weight on a campaign. you are eating more than three meals a day. there's great snacks that are brought to every event. during the ohio primary in 2008 i think i gained 20 pounds in a , month. unbelievable. >> not so on the trump campaign. >> how interesting. >> there was nothing. [laughter] >> there was water provided at one event, but it was trump branded water with his face on it. >> you didn't even get to stay for the wine. >> no. [laughter] >> this is the convention in tampa. governor romney had just given his acceptance speech.

then congressman paul ryan, now speaker of the house, had joined him on stage. at the conventions, we use a lot of remote cameras. this camera was fired by remote control. i'm actually in the picture, somewhere down there in the front, photographing at the edge of the stage. i was taking this picture at the same time it was making a tighter photograph of the two of them on stage from a lower angle. ben: from the campaign side, there's really a year of planning that goes into a convention. you bring in professional television producers and people who have worked on the oscars and the golden globes to set up these events. we always had a very specific story we wanted to tell and a very specific picture we wanted to show. obviously you all wanted to see some news and had a slightly different agenda. when you went to an event that

is staged, how did you find a moment that felt different? carolyn: you looked really hard. you know what the story is going in to the event, but there's always some little nugget behind the scenes, or somebody shows a piece of paper or makes an expression -- you chase the light first. that is kind of how i do it. then you look really hard and work really hard. there is always a story to tell. it is always like this is stagecraft, political theater, but you always try to lift the veil so people can see what these people are like, get to know them a little bit. that is what i try to see going -- when i going into such an am extravaganza like that.

[laughter] >> i felt like it was my duty to circumvent those controls as much as possible every single day. the picture that the campaign wanted to present, i think i tried my best to not make that picture as best i could. to look for these little moments of truth or sincerity in very controlled, very tightly staged events. i think i can remember covering trump's campaign, not going up onto the risers they provide for you, probably not even once or twice, maybe a handful of times, because they would try to narrow your perspective to such a tightly controlled little window that it forced you to be creative and think differently, to find a way to tell either the story of the day or the larger arc of the story through every possible means at your disposal. ben: this was the constant

struggle, being on a campaign, but hopefully we can all have a drink at the end of the day. >> yeah. >> and get over it. >> i hope so. [laughter] chip: it is kind of talking about the monotony of the campaign and doing something away from where they are shining the spotlight. in 2012, i had gotten my first iphone right before the campaign started. there was no instagram yet. or instagram had just started. i was trying to find a way to stimulate myself and make myself feel like i wasn't doing the same kind of robotic thing. i was able to kind of move around in between the events that were scheduled and make pictures of campaign life. the little moments between the

moments that were part of the official narrative. i started making these diptychs, where i would take my phone and make a quick picture of something i found interesting, then i would work hard to try to go at the end of the day and find a couple pictures that i thought worked together, that showed some comparison, some contrast, some humor perhaps. i made a series of these. on the top is senator marco rubio. that was at a debate. he was doing what we call a television hit where a lot of times that debates, television networks set up miniature studios and a large room in each of the candidates will go and sit for a few minutes at each of these many -- mini studios and get some time to talk. that was in denver. below their in the same room is

the -- there is in the same room, the spin room, and that was fox, a local television correspondent standing on an apple box. we call those apple boxes. they are a way for the reporters to stand a little higher, look -- a little better perspective to look better on television. those are both from the spin room in denver. this was before the big debate. ben: you talked about capturing campaign life, which is a life of its own, and feels very different from covering the government or working for the government, but explain to us what it was like to be on the road every day for a year or two, covering a campaign, just in terms of -- what were the logistics? were you staying at the four seasons? were you eating caviar? that is how i have seen it depicted in the movies. >> with romney you were. [laughter] carolyn: you learn a lot about yourself covering a campaign. you learn what it is like to be absolutely exhausted.

you learn about pocket management. you have to remember where everything is because when you are exhausted, you don't remember. you learn how to work with people. you will get the flu and that person will haul you on the plane and then you will haul that person on the plane when they get the flu. it is like this marathon. you see the best and worst of everyone. i learned a lot about myself covering campaigns. you gain a lot of weight. when you are in texas, you eat a lot of tex-mex. when you are in philly, you eat cheesesteaks. when you are in ohio it is like -- i don't know. there's a lot of logistics, a lot of moving. you can get black and blue running in and out of things. chip and i have a really great story -- chip: experience.

carolyn: experience. the hillary campaign, right? chip no, mccain. :carolyn it is all just one. : rooms, curtains, buses. you tell the person, i'm in a bus. you don't exactly know where you are. but the wheels were falling off the campaign, and as the campaigns kind of lose money and everybody is struggling for air, there are no seats on the plane and the organization is moving fast and you are going from city to city. you probably tell it the best. chip chip: no, you are doing : great. carolyn: we get to the tarmac -- chip: first, we were on an airplane. the campaign will rent a charter aircraft. what is traditional is the candidate sits at the front of the aircraft and kind of lobs off the first third of the campaign for the campaign staff and the candidate in the back of

the plaintiff where the press sits. -- of the plane is where the press sits. when you get closer and closer to election day those seats on , the airplane become more valuable. sometimes, as was the case with me with mccain, i was deemed not very important and kicked off the airplane so that someone from a network television crew could come in and sit on the airplane. carolyn: the politics of media. chip: which the campaign thought was more valuable. i eventually made an argument to the campaign otherwise and i was put back on the plane four days later. disappearey starts to and like carolyn said, the wheels come off the campaign. at one point, we landed. it was election eve and we landed in one plane -- carolyn: we had not slept for like a long time. chip: -- [laughter] chip: that was a whirlwind. we landed on one plane, and while we were at the event, they

took everything off that plane and put it on two smaller planes because they were less expensive than the large plane. one of the comforts of the campaign is you end where you start. if a plane lands and you jump in the van or the bus and take off to the event, you are sure to come back to the place you left and get off the plane and there you go. carolyn: and that is like your fourth plane of the day or whatever. you are just kind of holding onto the horse running really hard and there were no seats for us on one plane. they put us in the back of a pickup truck. chip: in the middle of the night. carolyn in the middle of the : night. i was really tired. my memory is even kind of crazy. they drove us to the next plane. there were no stairs. they hoisted us up. [laughter] chip: like this, into this jet.

carolyn: and then we get on and were there any seats? chip: there were, because we flew. the faa is sticklers about this. you have to have a seat to fly. we climb up in the first plane that first regional jet and we get on and walk down the entire length of the airplane going like this there are no seats. ,we turn around and go, there are no seats. well, get off the airplane. so we run and we get off the airplane. that nice guy through us in his pickup truck and we asked the campaign, where is the other airplane? they said, we don't know. carolyn: luckily the guy knew the airport. that is just kind of what it is like. it is like you are moving really fast, you break everything. election night, i broke -- you break stuff. [laughter] damon: i think on the dean campaign, at least we made the right decision. we knew when we told people they

cannot fly anymore. there were no planes left. i think folks knew the trajectory we were headed on after the screen. >> that is governor romney at the same event. -- at the same event, it was a pancake breakfast. is what campaigns run on. [laughter] up every morning -- wait until you get to davidson. [laughter] >> that is pretty self-evident. ben: again, 2012, this was an event at a fairground and one of the things you do not think of when you are covering or ingesting news as a consumer of

news, you see the main events, the candidate on the stage. people introducing the candidate, the remarks and they cut away and there is the spin. there is a lot of logistical work, as we all know, that goes into these campaign events. this is a line of city buses surrounding the fairground as a barrier, that is a mobile wall. that is a security fence. that is one way they provided security for the president because he was the president at the time. it is striking when you are walking from event to event and you look over and there is a wall of buses and you know it is for security purposes and when like,awns on you, you are whoa. security is a serious deal. that is another aspect of the campaign a lot of people do not

know about. isbuilding campaign events an art. a great book i would recommend is "the making of a president." the kennedy campaign that studies the art of how the president is visually presented at events. reagan is lionized for that as well. this is the advanced staff at the white house. they run a campaign, it is their full-time job to present the candidate and the events to determine what shot they would like to see in the paper that day. chip: more of that same fairground event. working to get both sides of the camera in, the candidate and the people listening. this was new mexico, 2008. ben: he didn't have a lot of gray hair back then. chip: look how young. no gray hair. ben: what were you doing with the light? chip: this was in an auditorium in new mexico.

what we try to do is we want to give people the bread and butter. we want to give them what they need. there is sort of a mantra in photography wide medium type and you can do that in motion pictures also, start with an establishing thought to give a sense of place and time and then you go for something tight. that gives editors a variety of images to use in a variety of places and a variety of media. after we get our bread and butter shots, i am told, by the wonderful people i work with -- and i say that with no irony, they are amazing, they say, stretch your wings. go out and do what you want to do. try to find something interesting. at the time, senator obama was taking questions from the audience.

it was a lot of young people. i found a spot on this file -- aisle in the auditorium where there is a particular group of young people raising their hands to ask questions. i lined it up, and there's a little serendipity involved in all these pictures. the person has to stand in just the right place. the subject is right in the right place and it kind of comes together. this isn't your typical newspaper picture. i'm always trying to push the limits also of what people should expect when they see a news photograph. i want to give them something that is not only informative, but a little bit entertaining and maybe sometimes challenging. 2012. he had walked off stage and worked the rope line a little bit and was headed back to the motorcade and the light just

fell on the right place at the right time. [laughter] ben: that is a subtle one. [laughter] ben: i see this picture, it is a great one. how do you capture these moments of raw authenticity on the campaign trail? campaigns and candidates can be pretty canned. chip: this was actually november 4, right before election day, and i remember -- were you there? carolyn: i was there, too. chip: this was in cincinnati. it was a really huge rally. there were a lot of people an entire arena. ,i remember. deepdent obama had reservoirs of energy. he was really good about understanding what was needed

and how hard he had to push and when to push and he seemed to be always full of energy. it was an amazing feat. people who run for president, i don't know how they do it. this event particularly he was , tired. sometimes when we are tired, we get a little goofy. [laughter] chip: he had his tie on earlier and had taken it off and this was like the last event of the day. this was on the way in and he had not made his speech yet. he came into the arena. news photographers are always working with the secret service and campaign staff about where we could stand, because they have a very firm idea about where the candidate will go and how the motion will play out. secret service is the last thing in the world they want to surprise. they don't want anything to go in a way they don't expect.

so we have particular places they like for us to stand when the candidate or the president comes into the room. sometimes that place is not good. sometimes it is. it is always a roll of the dice. every arena is different. every event is different and i -- happened toe be standing here when he saw something that made him happy. >> i think he was also anticipating the last days of his final campaign. >> definitely. >> we are seeing a bit of that breaking through. >> i remember shooting that same moment. it was a big moment. >> i think we were standing right next to each other. >> primary or general? >> general. no this was primaries. , this was june 3rd in st. paul. june 3rd of 2008 in st. paul. it was right before the south dakota and montana primaries. senator clinton had not yet

conceded. it was over, he had the nomination pretty much at this point. going back to what we were talking about, secret service not liking surprises. president obama got secret service protection earlier than all other candidates, because of the threat against his safety being the first african-american candidate, or the first viable, successful candidate. usually they do not get secret service until after the conventions. it is kind of the standard operating procedure for the nominees to get secret service, but not candidates. this was the excel center. he was working the rope line and not young lady -- she could hold back. she grabbed him and as soon as she pulled him in, he was in proximity of everyone else. cascadinghands came

over. i wish i could show you the whole take. i laid down on the shutter because -- you can see the secret service hands come in peeling him off and pulling senator obama out. it was a fun evening. another hug. this was september 7, 2012 in iowa. the president had a strong emotional connection to iowa. it is where he started and where he finished. his last campaign rally as a candidate was in iowa. ben: i think that was always part of the promise of the campaign plan. if he could win in a state that was over 95% white, there was a

potential path to elect in the african-american president. first that is what we thought on the campaign. election night, chicago. this is 2008. i remember talking with the campaign -- we call them handlers, folks that help us get from place to place. one of the handlers at the onset saw me taking pictures and he said i don't like silhouettes. he said it just like that. "i don't like silhouettes." the person shall remain unnamed. fine., ok, this is when we had digital cameras so i leaned over and i don't normally do this, but i

showed them more because i wanted to prove them wrong and i showed the photograph to the handler. it was not this picture and -- something similar to this. the handler went, oh. all right, all right. that is cool. [laughter] chip: now we are going to get into the most recent election. this was the first republican -- first republican debate in cleveland, ohio. were on many of them stage. that was amazing. i used a little reflection in the arena. trump campaign rally. ben: several of you covered the trump campaign. when is the first moment you really felt him breaking through with the crowds? was it from the very beginning or was there a tipping point in

the race? chip: after covering a couple of campaigns, i always sort of figure -- i started to realize you are so close to the campaign, it is hard to get the big picture. it is hard to get perspective and i figure you are around the most ardent supporters, the most diehard fans and it is hard to gauge how that reflects on the rest of the country. i do not think up until 3:00 a.m. on election night i actually thought he had a chance of winning. i was totally wrong. it was hard for me to come to terms with what i had been seen over the course of the year reflecting a larger movement across the country and that a good half of the country felt similar enough to what i was seeing at these rallies to vote for him. that was a big surprise for me.

chip: more rally. this young man was dressed as trump. he had a blonde wig on and the suit and the tie. he wept through the entire speech. >> i remember that guy. [laughter] chip: debate. ben: what was the moment of first contact between the two of them like at the first debate? do you remember walking on stage? chip did they shake hands? :damon at the first debate, they : did. i did not cover the first debate. ben: these rallies get pretty intense, at least on television. not just against the other campaigns, but he would call out the press on the stage.

did you ever feel any consequences from that in the crowds or at the events that you hadn't seen on a campaign before? >> yes, it was constant. it was a daily struggle. i have covered conflict before and come home from trips not feeling particularly well and my family sort of notices a change in me. i had come off a couple weeks covering the trump campaign, i had been in a protracted period of combat because it was a nonstop onslaught from people from the campaign, the supporters, and it was hard for you not to internalize that. at a couple of rallies, there that i saw that i could not believe and it said "rope, tree, journalist, some assembly required."

carolyn: i saw that. >> it was shocking. it was shocking to me that he could convince his supporters that a healthy press was not in their best interest. >> this is sarasota, florida. 7, straightmber before the election day. picking up where damon said, about 3:00 a.m. on election night, we were there together in new york and it is true, i don't room in newy in the york on election night thought he was going to win. i also don't think he thought he was going to win. goh that in mind, he would

to these campaign events and have fun. he loved the crowds and the crowds loved him. >> present tense. i was going to say, i am wrong. you are exactly right. the crowds love him. there is a special thing that happened. it happened with president obama and it happens when you get a person up there that really connects and can receive and transmit this feeling. if you have never experienced it, i encourage you to. if you have not been to a political rally, particularly for a candidate you support, i encourage you to. there is something very electric -- very special about it. we try our hardest to capture that in photographs. he was just having fun. somebody had this mask on in the crowd. he stepped away from the microphone and said give that to me. he picked it up and held it up

next to his face and we were photographing it, going, oh my god. that's a great picture. damon: do remember on election night, going back to the point of him not thinking he was going to win -- the night dragged on really late. i remember taking a picture full of empty drinks and the night went on and on and the staff and the handler were more and more drunk. by the end of the night, the staff was stumbling drunk. i don't think they thought they had to get up and go to work tomorrow -- the next day. chip: indeed. i remember his campaign staff's reaction when it started to really hit home they had won. they were just genuinely surprised and thrilled all at the same time. it was really something to witness. convention create

love these when they make these face cutouts. you guys recently had some cool interactions with people wearing masks. they are always fun. they are a photographer's dream. you are walking around the you are walking around the convention floor and trying to find something interesting, and the masks pop-up. he is everywhere. [laughter] this is the convention again. balloons had just started falling from the ceiling. he was standing and back and he had brought his family on stage. he pushed them forward so they could be part of the event. he was leaning back and made this face and it was kind of funny. what is amazing is how much barron has grown.

he is almost as tall as his dad now. they were doing mic checks. at the convention. [applause] caroline, you are up next. carolyn: i took this picture while mccain was actually speaking. when you feel like you can move, you move. this was a flag that was behind him on stage. it was a quick run around. the american flag is one of the main characters of what we do. they are everywhere and they are a part of making it look like a campaign.

the light was pretty. ben: how did you capture the silhouettes in motion? carolyn: what people do a lot of times is put a big flag behind the candidates and they will have people in bleachers cheering behind the candidate at the podium. all of the supporters cheering behind the flag. and the lights were coming toward the stage, so you got this silhouette. >> multiple lights cast multiple shadows. carolyn: you can be transfixed, but the thing is, you have to work fast. you cannot be roaming around. this was right after sarah palin joined the mccain campaign, which transformed his campaign. he is this war hero, both feet

on the ground, people saw him and veterans would come to see him. and then sarah palin came and it went boom. it was something to see and added a whole new energy. >> i remember waking up the day she was chosen and we had had 10 potential vice president picks. she was not on the list. [laughter] research compile these books with the record and it takes a lot of time to put together. we did not have a book on her and she had a really great moment at the convention. the polls started to move for the first time in a long time during the campaign. we were scrambling to get our house in order and then she did a now famous interview with katie couric and katie did a better job than we could do on the campaign. [laughter]

carolyn: we are going back. was this in ohio? we went to a bar. >> crown point, indiana and that is a shot of crown royal. carolyn: she picked what she wanted to have. we get to the bar and it was one of those otr's. that is the owner of the bar in white, watching her. if she goes to a bar, i thought, she is going to have to drink. they are being with people in their own spaces and identifying with them and reacting. what you want to get is that interaction, if you can get it. so i blew off the rest of the bar, thinking she was going to go drink. so i got myself behind the bar

and saw where they were clearing the bar. i planted myself there, and i waited. and she showed up. she ordered crown royal. she drank it. you know she had had it before. it was a nice moment. those moments don't happen much anymore. everything is very much orchestrated. >> this was at a point in the campaign where obama had been up for a long time and it did not necessarily look like clinton was going to win. but you talked about that with donald trump. she loosened up as a result and she had these great moments of connection on the campaign trail and became a very good candidate. she was very hard to beat for a long time. i think the indiana primary and particular, i remember what a great candidate she was.

carolyn: you could see that she was listening to people. she really worked on the connection and it was genuine. i like how in campaigns, everyone has something to talk to their person about and there is this intense emotion. all of these hands looked like they were going to reach out and grab her. this guy looks so sincere and wants to be heard. everyone wants to be heard. again, there is the big flag. it is a wonderful way to see the country and different people. sometimes you get to stand in the buffer before the candidate comes out and the people will talk to you and say they have been here since 4:00 in the morning, standing in this spot. you really understand how people love their candidate. that is why you should go to a

rally. this is on a tarmac. this is a hold onto the horse moment. i cannot believe the energy she had. it was like a miracle. she came to the back of the plane to see how it was decorated. this is where it was kind of crazy, and she just was having a good time. >> the end of the day on the campaign trail is always special. everybody is delirious, we were talking backstage, apparently this moment happens less now. can one of you describe the orange bowling challenge that happened on the press charter over the years? carolyn: ok. you are in these charter planes and when they take off, the plane is going like this.

so in the back of the plane, they have oranges so we don't get scurvy or something. [laughter] when the plane is going up, someone rolls the orange to try to get it to the front of the plane where the candidate is seated. it is really fun and it makes the whole thing possible, the energy management possible. it is really funny. and this, she came back on valentine's day on the plane and brought reporters chocolate. she is talking to someone's fiancee on the phone. it shows how she led in that campaign with this kind of face, this kind of open, smiling thing. it was a sweet moment for us.

and then, a flash. ben: it takes a lot of courage for a candidate to come to the back of the plane. carolyn: yes. reporters will ask any kind of questions. and if things are on a downturn, it is a hard thing is a candidate to open yourself up to that. so they would have their secret place in the front of the plane. >> we couldn't just walk up. >> those always felt like the most important moments for the candidate to walk back to. you could always smell it when they were hiding. carolyn: you could feel it. and you could feel the days when they are tired. because it is exhausting. you could feel it.

ben: this looks like a rare moment to capture. the moment the candidate doesn't always exposed to the world every day. carolyn: that is what that picture meant. when i took it, that is not necessarily what was happening. we were at old forge, pennsylvania. the pizza capital of pennsylvania. loved pennsylvania and had claimed pennsylvania for her heart. so she wanted to go eat pizza. you have to go where she is going to the pizza. so i planted myself by where she would eat the pizza. you always watch and you look really hard. i took a long lens out and i watched her work the crowd. and i caught somebody's flash.

what that means is, i was just kind of exposing for the window light, trying to get some real like. i was trying to play with the light because i was not in the position for any kind of thing. so this was a gift, that picture. it told about how tired we all can be. that picture got play after she did not get the nomination. ben: this is such an interesting photo when we talk about perception. you stumble across this photo which i think is very humanizing and a lot of times the candidates want to be presented as superhuman and unbreakable. but this is a photo that is so beautiful and touching and shows all of her lines, all of her experience in a very vulnerable

moment. but i think she would not like this photo. that all of us looking at it, we love it. we think it says a lot in a wonderful way. >> this reminds me of what it is like to walk backstage and see the candidate after they were on stage. carolyn: lifting the veil and showing people what these people are like. every once in a while that happens. speaking of lifting the veil, joe biden goes into a diner. [laughter] carolyn: we get into this diner in ohio and you know how they

work a diner, table to table, eat french fries with people. but the bikers were at the very end of the diner. and i'm like, it has to be about the bikers. before i get started, i go to the main handler and i'm like, it's the bikers. i need to be with the bikers. but they pull us out halfway through the diner and we miss the bikers. but this handler, who i have known through hillary's campaign and have known for a long time came back into the van and pulled me out and brought me back in so i could photograph him meeting the bikers. this woman had pulled up her chair to sit in front and pose for a picture.

the moments are not the moments they give you. the moments are the moments after the picture is posed and taken. this is when they are just talking and saying thank you for being here. so it was this funny little biden moment. he is a minister. and there is all of these things and an ohio diner. >> carolyn and i are technically competitors, and i can tell you when this picture came across the wire, her competitors were like, oh my god. [laughter] i am quitting. i am done. i could never do it that good, ever. it is finished.

it is an awesome picture. >> i thought that one and this next one captured the essence of joe biden. i thought president obama is brilliantly charismatic in front of a large crowd, and vice biden is charismatic in one-on-one interactions. carolyn: really, he shared french fries all over the country. he would sit down at a table and start eating and people just love him. women love him and men love him. kids will tell you all about it. he is very personable. this picture shows that. we went from diner to diner. he talked to people and listened to them. this picture also talked about how the picture is good if you can get close.

so you know the room and you say to the agents, how about right there? so you place yourself, anticipating the light and who might look sparkly. so this was a posed diner moment campaign picture. >> vice president biden lives for these moments. this is why he does what he does. there is policy and governance, but this is why he does what he does. carolyn: he is magic. it is something to see. so this picture, i gave up a lot to get this picture. you go to a campaign event and obama is on stage and everybody cheers. he has no gravity. but this was more about the stagecraft and they offered us a cherry picker.

i knew if i went up in it, i would not get down in time to do anything else. but we always have someone on the back stand, doing the front. so i thought, take a chance to do this picture. it shows some behind the scenes. he is coming out of his little security tent and it looks like he is about ready to run and launch onto the stage. so, this is what a bus tour looks like in the midwest. [laughter] carolyn: this picture was borne out of frustration because obama is in the bus and we are like 50 cars back or whatever. but it is also really important to show where he is and what he is doing. he is talking to farmers.

that is a really important part to show where they are. give them some context. by the time he got to a place, he would have an ice cream cone and we are just stopping and we would have to run out and he would be done. you know, so it is part of the manic bus tour. bus tours are great though. lots of ice cream. [laughter] carolyn: this is just a frozen, rainy bunch of people going to see obama and i grabbed this picture on the way in. the lines. i guess we jump back a little. this is hillary, one of those pictures you have to be close to make. when you work a room, you find a place where you think she is going to go and it comes to you sometimes and people just -- people love their candidate. and it is a great way to see different people in the country. she was really laughing hard.

this is the first time i photographed donald trump. this was at the capitol at a tea party event before he got the nomination. i was working the front. he went off the back of the stage. i missed the whole get off the back of the stage. i was like, ok, i'm missing this shot. so i planted myself behind an audio table, this hard, immovable object. he got pushed right to me and this just opened up and there is press all over and you can see -- like the hillary one before, and this one here, just that energy, that interaction with their people. >> was he giving him the pull in handshake? carolyn: totally. the kind of got stuck there for a minute. there was this thing and they

were both making sound and i was kind of taking pictures. [laughter] carolyn: and media is yelling. i planted myself because they were clearing a path for him. you just kind of got to think ahead. and that is how i got that picture. big head, little head at the convention. [laughter] every person who spoke at the convention, i took pictures of big head, little head. they had this big jumbotron behind and there they would be. as a wire service photographer, i work the buffers, that point between the people and the stage, for both the republican and the democratic national conventions. so, yes, this is an example of the pictures i took every day. >> i think there is one funny little note. carolyn: we were there together.

>> ap first. ap has traditionally been the wire service that provides the world pictures and news. there is a tradition of having the ap first and they have that center spot of you have that pressure and traditionally the first question at the white house press briefing is from the ap. carolyn: being a wire service photographer is a little different. you could be curious, but you still have to cover everybody. i don't know if you know sailing. you've got to make sure you have the pictures. every once in a while, you have somebody on the back stand, you can get in the cherry picker and take a chance. it is an interesting kind of grind. again with the little faces everywhere. you try really hard to find something different. i really love the baby arms.

[laughter] >> great. carolyn: that was a delegate with his little baby on a little bjorn thing in front. >> so great. carolyn: this is one of those pictures you have to get. this is why we were here. the photo story behind this, this is the whole convention to get these. you work the center spot. you will the center spot to get the balloon drop. the runners mess up the cards and my cards went to a different agency. it was crazy. anybody who is like a photographer knows that kind of thing. but it all worked out fine. but yes, that is what i think.

when i see that. >> i will come back to this. we got a crowd reaction. carolyn: this is a good picture for you. they hit their marks. this was total stagecraft. i looked at the stage and i saw the black x and i planted myself in front of that tape because i knew he was going to introduce her and he wrapped his arms around her and it was the picture they wanted us to have. this was it. >> there is a real blocking to these events. it's almost like a play. you have to hit your light. you have to do your mark on the stage. we remember the moments where something was a little bit off. were so accustomed to how

choreographed these moments are. carolyn: you've got to know the choreography to work around it too. >> thank you. [applause] >> we will conclude with damon's photographs. damon: all right, so i just talk, huh? so, yes, i covered a bit of romney's campaign in 2008. you were talking a little bit about the rhythms of campaigns before you read campaign was completely different. i remember covering romney early on before he had his press plane and you would spend every day booking your flight, getting a car, trying to get ahead of the next destination. that rhythm was completely different to the five events a day when you are on the plane and traveling along with the candidate.

this picture, i spent a while with romney, but did not cover his entire campaign. this was around the time that he had made these comments about having the binders full of women. i love the fact that he is turning his back on this really tender gesture from this woman and she is just kind of caressing his back as he is turning toward this crowd of old white men. [laughter] damon: the way i think about covering campaigns is you see the same thing over and over and i want each photo to say something beyond of things that are in the frame at this moment. part of the beauty of covering a campaign is you have this repetition at seeing things over and over again and over the arc of a campaign, you can really think about how these photos will all fit together to tell a story or you can work on a specific moment that you really think is important to the arc of that story.

[laughter] damon: this is at the convention during a sound check. i had a really long lens and i was one of the only people in the hall and i love this expression that paul ryan had on his face. this deer in headlights. with all of these shadowy figures conspiring behind him, as if they are pulling the strings. [laughter] >> that kind of has a reservoir dogs feel to it. carolyn: yes. damon: and those ears and the piercing blue eyes. this is probably one of my favorite photos from obama's first campaign in 2008 in duncanville, texas. without seeing the faces on all these children, i feel like you can feel this energy and this

complete joy of getting to see the first african-american presidential candidate coming through their town, that they get to look on somebody that looks like them running for the nation's highest office. the excitement was palpable. i remember just watching the scene, the multiple layers of shadows and gestures, the hands, and without seeing a smile or an eye or a tear coming you knew exactly how these kids felt. >> as a staffer on the campaign, you lived for these moments. you worked for these moments. every difficult day on the campaign, you were reenergized by seeing what really mattered. damon: these are all choices that you have to make. to make this picture, i have to miss the candidate walking into the arena. you make a choice because you see the scene unfolding to your left. is this the picture that tells the story of the day?

or probably of the campaign? do i give up the bread-and-butter thing. do i run over and do this? you have to make those calculations all the time. this was in the closing days of the 2008 campaign. he made a campaign stop. this was at a university in pennsylvania. this ended up being kind of an iconic photo from his campaign. it was an event that i almost did not make it to. my colleague doug mills and i were both covering the campaign at that point and he was doing some behind the scenes and i was out in front, but we got on the second bus and the daily news reporter had to go to the bathroom before we left, so the whole motorcade left without us and we were just sitting there. we had to fight through traffic and we just made it. right as he was taking the

stage, as it was starting to pour down rain. he stayed out there. instead of cutting his speech short this was one of the , longest events i can remember. he was completely energized. this photo, beyond sort of looking kind of matrix-y and cool, it really highlighted the youth, the vigor, the excitement in his campaign. mccain canceled his events because of the weather that day. this was a perfect contrast to what those two campaigns represented. this was after he was elected. on a whistle stop tour. i think in the moment i did not really understand how much it meant to people. we would see a lot of people crying, people overcome with joy

and emotion. it took me maybe looking back on that time and having covered some other campaigns to really understand what a powerful moment that was for a lot of people. and also looking at this picture, i think about the mood of the country at the time and how diverse his events were at these rallies, how it really -- i had never really seen people being so civil, sharing the space together, working toward this common goal. it was really uplifting. it was a fantastic time. it was the first time i had covered a campaign feeling so incredibly lucky to be part of that. and this was from covering his second campaign in 2012 as president. you know, the tone of the campaign naturally was different from the first one. the first campaign was the hope and promise of a new, young

candidate coming into government -- or into the highest office for the first time. the second time around was sort of defending a whole administration's worth of policies and no longer being the outsider, claiming to be able to make change. he had to defend his four years in office. i was just sort of taken by the trappings of the presidency and the scale of it and how it is dwarfed by this iconic air force one. everybody who covers the white house knows how much the plane features into coverage. it is really kind of an impressive -- >> it is a very different challenge. you have to defend something the deputy secretary of agriculture did two years ago. they say you campaign in poetry and govern in prose and you have

to incorporate some of the poetry into the campaigns. there was certainly a different feeling to the second one. damon: this is also from the 2012 campaign. this is one of my favorite pictures from that campaign. i spent the entire event, i don't remember where it was, most photographers, we spend a lot of time in the front, but you could also go way back to the end of the pen where all the photographers were and from the one certain angle, you could see the potted flowers reflected in his teleprompter. he sees the words of his teleprompter, but from where i was standing, i could see this bouquet of flowers. it was this really overcast day, this really gloomy day. it really spoke to the challenge of an incumbent running for office.

he had lived through the midterms of 2010, where republicans took both houses and basically stonewalled every single policy that he attempted to put forth. he had a hard time selling his affordable care act to the public. and in that second campaign, trying to put a rosy glow on four years of governance when things were not that easy. i always loved how this picture sort of captured that. >> i think we should have just run the flowers as an ad. [laughter] damon: in contrast, i just like this picture because of how crappy it looks. [laughter] damon: how little effort was put into it. early on, it was really a slipshod campaign, really poorly

run, really disorganized, very difficult to cover because a lot of the people running the campaign did not really know what they were doing. i sort of felt like this kind of captured that. and he did tons of these hangar rallies. he really liked to show off the plane. i think it was a powerful image for him. believe it or not, he played the theme music to air force one on loop as the plane was approaching for like 20 minutes. but basically, he would fly in, hop off his plane, give a speech, hop back on the plane, and take off. a lot of times, he would not even stopped to shake people's hands. i love this idea of swooping in, doing your thing, and leaving,

and leaving everybody else to pick up the garbage. >> we talked about covering mccain, romney, are you on that plane or are you just here? damon: for a good bit of time, there was no press plane with trump either. you have to pick and choose your battles and try to get through as many events as possible. this is in iowa. iowa is a pretty big state. i remember he covered it like a guy that had a plane. he would go from one end of the state to the other. i think i drove 2000 miles in the course of three or four days. you have to pick and choose and you have to work each event as best you could and get the most out of each event because you knew that was the only time you were going to see him that day. so, this is at the same event. i don't know if you remember, but i was all over your back.

i was like, carolyn, so sorry. she had the best spot. she had the sweet spot. carolyn: there are usually two square feet that are the place that everybody wants to be and we all kind of share this. damon: that was not my position the whole week. you had shot that position over and over with all the different candidates, but i only shot that position on the night he gave that speech. i basically worked this photo, i think i shot over 1000 images of this exact theme to read over and over again, trying to get the technical stuff right because you need to shoot a certain shutter speed to get rid of the way it cycles through. but my idea, i had seen this before, the screen in the back has a very slight delay from what is being shown.

there is a millisecond delay. if you can shoot it just right, you can capture a moment where the expression on the screen is different than the expression in real life. what i thought about was the fact that the new york times for the very first time had said the president lied. they use that word for the first time. that was kind of a big deal. how do you take a photograph that says this person is capable of lying or has lied? how do you show duplicity in a photograph? this is one of those ways that we have to use every means at our disposal to try to tell a story. he made his pitch to rural, working class, white america. i think this is oklahoma. i don't have my notes. a lot of times, i would try to photograph him without showing the person himself.

and then this is another time that i was sort of thinking of his ability to tell untruths, to be duplicitous. you have these two different shadows that are somewhat hollow and thin. [laughter] damon: i feel like i tried my very best to get beyond the restrictions of the campaign imposed on us. they were very, very restrictive. the most restrictive campaign i've ever covered. they kept your angle of view really narrow. you had to work hard to find a way to tell a story. >> at the times, were you coordinating with a reporter to get a sense of the story they are doing? are you working with the photo editor and what they need? how does that process work? damon: no, we are out covering day to day.

i know what the stories are and i'm following the news. i'm also thinking of the big picture and the long arc of the story and trying to find ways to make a complete body of work over the course of 16 months that i covered his campaign. i think this was during his first big foreign policy speech. and like i was saying before, trying to use different tools at your disposal to make interesting photographs that tell a story. in this speech, he was really ramping up the anti-muslim rhetoric. this is through the eye piece of a camera person's shooting the live feed and there were very few events where it works out this way because it was a really small venue, so the camera is really close to him, so his

image is quite large in the viewfinder and he is out of focus in the background himself. so, this is like the beauty of covering a campaign. the repetition, you can try these things over and over again. eventually, you will get it to work out. in sort of contrast with the obama rally crowds, it is interesting to look out and see a sea of faces with very little diversity. i think this is in florida. part of what we do is capturing a sense of place and the people that show up to these events. i sort of liked the light too. the beautiful balance between the existing light and the setting sun. so, this is this young man named jaden in colorado junction.

toward the end of the campaign, i found myself taking more and more photographs of children at these rallies. i think i had a four-year-old son at the time myself and i was really confused and pretty conflicted about what these children were being exposed to at these rallies and the kind of vitriol and hate they were expressing at a very young age and being encouraged to. there is a photograph a frame or two afterward, the father on the right is very proud of his son and he gives them a kiss on the head and he is chanting, "lock her up, lock her up!" we had a few minutes in the buffer with that. i remember the press agent yanking me out as i was taking this picture. i think it is one of the more poignant photos from the campaign.

everybody always sees the armpit. i don't see the armpit. this is in sacramento. i see this guy that is dressed in the flag and he is in front of the flag and this very bright message of this populist message, this nationalistic message is blinding him to all else and that is how i read this photo. this is in iowa before the caucuses. so many people photographed this guy's house. i guess he was a trump supporter. he was kind of ambiguous about why he was doing this. he put this massive billboard in the yard of his house. i know it got vandalized. thple through paint at it --

rew paint at it. i went one evening to make a photograph and stayed through the evening as the sun set. and i love this sort of whiff of pink clouds kind of emanating from his forehead. [laughter] damon: and just trying to tell the story. a majority of white women ended up voting for trump despite the hollywood access tape. i just love this woman and her defiance. how she is standing up and she is dressed in her sunday finest and she is not going to take any crap from anybody. >> and it feels like if you took that, if you can across her on the street today, you could take that same picture. [laughter]

damon: this is in sacramento. i'm surprised they let him into the rally. [laughter] damon: he is not protesting. down below, he has another sign on his chest and on his back, i think he is making fun of hillary or something. but i sort of felt like, the joke is on you because you are wearing the dunce cap. [laughter] damon: donald trump, at some point, uttered words i thought i would never hear any candidate say. he said, "i love uneducated voters." i think he's sort of preyed on that. >> the hair. damon: we talk about access. in contrast with the obama photo where you get to see him disembarking from the plane, getting on the plane and all of the pomp that goes along with

that, sometimes all we would get with a little glimpse of him for a millisecond. also speaking about the opacity of his campaign, the refusal to release his tax records, flying in a private jet. all of those things rolled into one in this picture. [laughter] damon: yes, he is standing in front of an american flag. you can barely see it, but this is one of those things that i'm telling myself, the campaign is so restrictive and they give you this little pen and the want you to stand on the riser and shoot him in front of the american flag, this giant american flag. i sort of feel like if you are going to pen me in that much, you are going to force me to be creative.

i got on the riser and waded in near the crowd. people put their hands up and cell phones up. one person put their phone up so it looked a little dark. it is just his hair and his finger. a certain emptiness to his message. there was not a lot of policy in his speeches. preying on people's emotions and getting those few things that define him. his way of speaking. >> i think one lesson learned for campaign staff is never put photojournalists in a pen. you are going to get really creative and we are not going to get rewarded in any way. [laughter] damon: i always sort of thought of the stalin-era marble statue with this photo. i don't know what happened to his left arm.

he does have a hand. i don't know where it is. [laughter] damon: but i could see this as a statue in washington dc during the military parade. [laughter] damon: i think this is the closing days toward the end of the campaign. looking for ways to show the tone of the campaign and different ways to show the candidate without showing the candidate. and so this is from election night. this is about 3:00 in the morning after one of the most brutal nights of my journalistic career. just long and difficult. at the end, there was lots of broken glass. people were really inebriated. a woman had stepped on glass and

cut her foot. she bled all over these make america great again signs. to me this is the only photo i was really proud of that night. that i felt really told the story. i have spent 16 months covering the campaign and had a good taste of the mood of the country at that moment, and what electing donald trump might mean for this country going forward. i felt this was the photo that told the story. [applause] >> thanks, damon. >> thank you, everybody, for coming. this brings us to the q&a portion of the evening. there will be two people with microphones. we only have time for a couple of questions. if you could please raise your hand.

if your question is selected, we will come to you. please speak into the microphone as we are recording this. i will head to the center. >> thank you, all. brilliant, brilliant photographs all the way. does anybody ever use film, or is everything digital? >> especially with a wire service workflow, it is how we do it. it is so fast, it is all digital. we are transmitting from the back of the camera, we take the picture before the end of the event. the pictures are already out in circulation. that pretty much dictates that. occasionally your heart will jump back to film and you will do some project. digital is what we do.

>> covering the campaigns, it has to be digital because there are no deadlines anymore. there is a 24 hour news cycle. it has gotten faster and faster. it used to be you had to get your stuff in by 6:00 to make print deadlines, but now you have to get it in constantly because stories go up right away. >> i saw a hand, i am coming. >> given your long days, you are filling up cards with many, many images. who reviews them, and if so, who reviews them? how do you manage all that extra -- all that stuff day after day? >> we manage those images. like carolyn just said, we will be escorted and arrive at a campaign event. they will bound us out of the bus.

it is usually behind an arena or a church. they bound us out and we run in. we might have a second to throw down our computer at a table. then the reporters are coming in with us and the television folks are getting set up as fast as they possibly can. i keep my laptop, most of us keep our laptops with us. then the candidate comes out and we will make pictures -- depending what happens, the first four or five minutes. and you'll see our heads drop to the ground. then we pull out our laptops and we're immediately filing and writing captions as frantically as possible. a lot of us carry portable wi-fi hotspots. a lot of us will carry two or three of those because you do not know where you are, which company has the best signal. sometimes it is at&t, sometimes it is verizon.

you will try to transmit for -- four or five pictures as fast as possible, and a variety of pictures. could be arrival handshake. then you throw it back to the laptop in your shooting again. then the event is over and may -- maybe the candidate works the rep line, maybe they will not. then you're back on the bus and the clock is really taking. -- the clock is ticking. you have the distance from the bus until you are 3500 feet in the airplane, because that is where the wi-fi drops off, the cell phone signal. then you jump on the bus and go as fast as you can. you are editing. you are editing thousands of pictures sometime. as i have gotten older i try to be more discriminating and not shoot thousands of pictures anymore. maybe hundreds. you are going like mad, then you bound on the bus and the airplane and you are filing pictures.

you can watch it as the plane climbs into the air, but you watch your cell phone signal go boop boop. carolyn: and you are holding my-fi against the window. chip: it goes in reverse, also. as you are descending to the next event you watch the cell phone go up, up. every second on those mad dash days. part of the daily routine is writing out your captions because you know will you be in five cities that you pre-write your captions. with editing it saves a few seconds and those seconds really make a big difference. >> this will be our final question of the evening. i will get one from the back.

>> can any of you think of a moment when you are surprised by the respect or caring that a candidate may have shown a voter, or conversely, disrespect or contempt slip out? >> that is a good question. every candidate is different. carolyn: yes. you strive, at least a lot of time, how they interact with people. people come to them with their emotions on their sleeve. if they feel they are being heard by someone of such importance to our country, they will cry. they will get a hug. people would see john mccain and weep, just at the sight of him.

people told hillary clinton their life story. people would hold onto donald trump and not let go. there are those moments of connection and energy that you see all the time. especially people waiting since 4:00 in the morning for a 7:00 p.m. event. they are exhausted and everyone's emotions are high. some of these events it can be 100 degrees in the high school gym and no one has had water and everyone is losing their mind. a lot can happen. >> it is interesting to contrast candidates to -- i think of -- observing obama campaign, i felt he was the same person in real life when the camera was not on him as he was when he was greeting people and the camera was watching him. i felt he really enjoyed

interacting with people and getting to meet them and shake their hands. one of the first candidates i covered was john edwards. i could contrast that feeling. he was really having to work hard to interact with people, and he really did not like it. it was uncomfortable for him and he did not like having to shake people's hands and look them in the eye. it's interesting spending that much time with a candidate and getting too low -- to know a little bit more about what makes them tick. >> you can join me one final time in thanking our panel for coming out today. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] kavanaugh joined his fellow supreme court justices on the bench today to hear his first arguments on the high court. his family was in the courtroom for his first day. the court her cases dealing with whether state laws on what is called slight force -- require

enhanced sensing under federal law and whether burglaries of mobile homes should be considered vehicle burglaries. justice cavanaugh asked several questions of the litigants. he sits next to justice elena kagan. protests continued outside the court. >> former cbs news anchor bob schieffer will moderate a discussion's the heads of the national democratic institute and the international republican institute. they will talk about promoting democracy abroad. live at 5:30 eastern, here on c-span. until the8 days midterm election. were showing congressional and governors debates from around the country. tonight at 8:00 eastern, will be like with the utah u.s. senators debate between mitt romney and jenny wilson, on the seat of retiring senator orrin hatch. and charlie baker debates his democratic challenger, j

gonzalez, in the state's governor's race. and it 10:00 p.m. eastern, arizona second congressional district debate between democrat ann kirkpatrick and republican leo marquez peterson. c-span, your primary source for campaign 2018. >> fox news host tucker carlson ofcusses his book, ship fools, how is selfish ruling classes bringing america to the brink of revolution. >> it's about why we elected trump, and i just couldn't get past it. i couldn't get past the country voting for donald trump. it's not an attack on trump, i think he is right in a somatic since about a bunch of different things. but you wouldn't elect trump unless you really, really wanted to send a message. happy countries don't elect donald trump, desperate ones do.

the message is people on both sides screwed up. eastern, night at 8:00 q&a."span's " >> the c-span buses traveling country.e we recently stopped in indianapolis, indiana. looking forward to the november midterm election, where asking folks which party should control congress, and why. >> the party i want to take over congress is the democratic party. not just because i support the values of the democratic party, but because i think the republican party has completely abdicated its responsibility to serve as a check and balance on the executive branch. in addition to legislation, it's the responsibility of congress to be able to serve as that check and balance and we just not seen that.

if control of congress changes in november, i believe i will be impacted in several ways. for one, i'm a college student who is just now getting out of school. i will be entering the workforcr financial matters that get decided across congress will directly affect me and my future success. i am an african american woman and the representation that is there for me and those fighting for my rights and my civil rights is very important and i believe this will be impacted if there is a change in congress. >> the elections this year, if, by some strange chance, the congress should change over to another party, we would have some impact here. generally, in indiana, we are pretty independent folks and as with our infrastructure program, we have moved ahead with whatever congress does.

we make sure we operate and -- in a responsible and business-like way. we passed a major infrastructure bill last year and if the government helps us, that is great and if not, we will continue to march and we are working with water also. shouldink democrats control congress because i believe our country needs to swing more left or progressive. especially issues related to women. women's ability to choose and the right to a safe workplace. thank you. >> voices from the states, part of c-span's 50 capitals tour. before president trump left the white house for a rally in iowa, he spoke about nikki haley announcing her resignation, north korea, and his lunch with kanye west.