I Spoke To John Edwards

But it wasn't recently. But I have spoken to him. And he spoke to me. And this is a first for me. In my entire life, I have never spoken with a Vice Presidential candidate. But now I can say I have.

It was about 6 years ago when I first spoke with him. During the election campaign for the US Senate seat he now holds. It was when I was doing my radio talk show on WMFR, and I had managed to get an interview with him. Of course, it wasn't that difficult. When they are running for office, they are a lot easier to get an interview with. But then after he was elected, I also interviewed him at least three times again, and maybe even four, but I'm not sure if I talked with him that last time or his press secretary. He and his office were always very gracious and kind. They returned every phone call and e-mail and his office would always work with me to try and get my interview. Sometimes they couldn't but they would always explain why.

That was a total of at least 4 interviews with the man that could be the next Vice President of the United States. And that is 4 times more than I was able to interview our other esteemed Senator at the time, Jesse Helms. I called Jesse Helms office till I was blue in the face, and they never called me back. They wouldn't even call me back to say the good Senator was just very busy and couldn't find the time to talk with me or my audience.

During the 1998 US Senate campaign we also managed to get an interview with John Edwards opponent, the Republican incumbent, Lauch Faircloth. But because of his schedule, Senator Faircloth was going to be on the Midday talk show with one of our other show hosts. The day of the interview, that show host was out sick, or maybe on vacation, I just don't remember. Anyway, I was going to fill in for him and conduct the interview. Senator Faircloth was not going to be in the studio, rather we were going to conduct the interview on the phone. I was in the studio getting ready for the interview and my show producer was in the control room. Senator Faircloth called about 5 minutes before airtime and my producer informed him that Dennis Elliott would be doing the interview because the regular host was out today. Then all hell broke loose.

Well maybe that's an overstatement. What happened was, Senator Faircloth said if Dennis Elliott is going to be doing the interview, then I'm not going to go on the air. My producer hit the intercom and told me we had a problem, that I should get in there quick. When he told me what the Senator had said, I took the phone from him and asked the Senator what was going on. Senator Faircloth said that people had warned him about me, that he knew I was considered a liberal and that I might not be fair. I got pissed. I might be a liberal and I certainly did express my opinion on the air, but I had always been fair with my guests. I had learned a long time ago that if you wanted to interview all of the different sides in politics, that you couldn't bushwhack someone and beat up on them. I had never been unfair.

Then Senator Faircloth wanted me to give him the questions ahead of time and he would tell me whether or not he would answer them. I absolutely refused. By this time, we were down to just a minute or two before airtime and I told him he needed to make up his mind real quick. I also told him that if he backed out of the interview, then I was going to spend the next hour talking about how he had refused to talk with me at the last moment because I was a liberal.

Well, to make a long story short. We went on the air. And it was fine. He didn't get mad and hang up on me and we had a rather uneventful interview. To be honest, he and the interview were both rather boring. I was wishing he had backed out and I could have talked about how he refused to talk to a liberal. Now that would have been a good show.