Fever

As the piercing, unsettling shriek hammers my ears, I breath in the overpowering scent of potpourri, folded in with a subtle, sickly, whiff, of recently smoked cigarettes.  In this room, shrouded in chaos and claustrophobic emotional rawness, the sweet smell of orange slices, cinnamon, and Marlboro steadies me.

The unrelenting squelch of the fire alarm ricochets at the speed of sound off the redwood paneling dotted with the portraits of a family I've only just met. 

Robert Allen Page

 Robert Allen Page, a solid man of farmer's stock, is crying deeply, as his wife Joy grasps his rough, creased, and calloused hand.  Robert, emotionally naked in front of two television cameras, is about to share his most personal moment about his granddaughter, who recently died during a unreal, freak accident.  As he prepares to share a tale about Nikki, the radiant heat from our studio lights trigger the alarm in his tiny living room.

"I'm sorry," I offer as photographer Mike DeBarnardo scurries to snatch off the light, and uses his ball cap to whisk away the heat from the white pod on the ceiling  "It's.  It's OK," Robert sniffles, as he drags his hardened paw across his face, self-consciously erasing the tears from his cheeks and blinking wildly as if he is trying to wake himself from a trance.  As the piercing pollution finally relents, I awkwardly return to my line of questioning, "so you were saying how Nikki could light up a room?"

Robert's 11 year old granddaughter, Nikki Clark, died yesterday after a terrible accident.  The girl is running up the stairs of her home, with a rod, used to adjust blinds, when she falls, plunging one end under her skin, just below her clavicle bone.  As Robert tells it, the rod only enters about an inch into the girl's body, but it also partially severs an artery.  As Nikki scurries to her father, she blurts with wide-eyed terror, "look what I did." she yanks the rod from her chest, and instantly begins to bleed out.  hours later the little girl is declared brain dead, then later dies at a hospital in Ogden, Utah.

Nikki Clark

I meet Robert and his family at his home in Hyrum, Utah.  The house is warm and inviting but also very small.  As Mike zips open canvas bags filled with lights and light stands, Nikki's two sisters, and another little friend begin to perch themselves right behind me.  The living room is about 10 feet by 10 feet, and decorated with several large chairs, and a room engulfing, billowing sofa, that likely swallows up a third of the space.

The body heat, and the warmth radiating from the blinding lights, is beginning to raise the physical temperature of the room exponentially.  As Robert settles into his chair, the tiny space has the feel of a greenhouse.

A photographer from another station finds her head swiveling from left to right, as she surveys a room for a place to stand.  There is none to be found, because every foot is occupied by cables, cameras, and bodies.

She clumsily gravitates to the only empty space in the room to my left, and I find her just a few  inches from my shoulder, as Nikki's sisters hover behind me.  They are so close, I can feel the air wisp past me when one of them moves her head or scratches her nose.

The room is like a fever, physically hot, and getting emotionally hotter as Robert, and his wife cry, claw, and search for answers to a tragedy that has none.

As Robert begins again after the uncomfortable interruption of the fire alarm, He speaks calmly for  a few minutes, then the tears well, and stream down his face once more, and the quiver, again, takes hold of his lower lip, "She was our little "Red," he says of the redheaded little girl, "She was our every..." his heartfelt recollection, shutters to a stark end, as that alarm, that blasted alarm, screams at us once again.  "That's been our luck," he says showing his exasperation.  My throat is pulled towards my stomach, as I sigh, and close my eyes.  I am mortified.

Kevin Clark, Nikki's Father

As the interview winds to a finish, the room squeezes tight with even more people, all of them draped in the pall of pain.  Ten people total, now submerge themselves into the sweltering, and aching ocean that is filling the paneled room.

 I prepare to signal to Mike that the interview is over, when Nikki's father Kevin, crushed by grief, darts into the room, grabs the grandmothers's hands and tells us, "there is nothing we could do!"  His frantic sorrow, catches like a summer wildfire fueled by brittle cheat grass high in the Wasatch Mountains.  Robert and Joy begin to weep loudly and openly, as the children at my back move in even closer, and the temperature, slowly ticks up a few more degrees.

I thank the family for sharing their story, then step outside into the brisk openness, unzip my coat, and flaunt it away from my body with both arms as if I have wings, as I invite the cool, almost frigid air to engulf me.

Fantasy VS. Reality.

I don't really care for rabbits as a pet.  I remember as a child being fascinated by them, thanks in part, to Bugs Bunny cartoons.  So when I discovered one of my class mates in the second grade had one, I rudely invited myself over to his house one day after school.   I guess I expected that rabbit to be munching desperately on carrots just like bugs and bounding violently, 6 feet off the ground, and I suppose, wearing white gloves.

The real thing is a sobering disappointment. when he isn't hiding in his cage, the bunny simply ignores the two of us and spends all his time carelessly and soullessly foraging for leaves of lettuce, and, it turns out,  he doesn't hop at all, he lazily bounds a couple inches from one place to another, and to my horror, doesn't eat carrots at all.  It was yet another childhood cartoon fantasy shattered, like: 1) vanishing cream doesn't make you invisible.  2) Road runners are not 4 feet tall.
3) Anvils don't really fall from the sky that often. 4) Castor oil, well, I guess not even the cartoons really explained what that is.

My opinion of rabbits changed yesterday when I met Houdini, the mortality-dodging bunny, who escaped death.  Jason Price is in jail today because he tried to kill Houdini with a sword.  Price's old friend, Corey Blanke, reluctantly invites the wayward man to stay at his South Salt lake City home with his family which includes a wife, a 14 year old girl, 2 dogs and of course, Houdini.
At 5 AM, Price wakes up, and allegedly retrieves Houdini from his metal, mesh cage, snatches a long metal, 30 inch decorative sword off the wall, pins the bunny to the floor and grasping Houdini's leg, proceeds, according to police, thrust that shiny blade repeatedly at the little guy.

Corey tells me, Price stabs at Houdini several times, but Houdini shucks one way, shimmy's another and avoids every death blow. Corey isn't so lucky, fearful that Price will go after Blanke's family, Corey latches onto the business end of that blade and pries it from Price's grip.  Price retreats out the door, in his boxers, and Blanke ends up with 10 stitches in his hands, "It hurts like hell," he laughs, "but I'll be fine," he tells me.

As I glance at the video of Houdini, doing what rabbits do, sitting in his cage, thinking about lettuce, I just can't get this comical image out of my mind of Houdini, shift-shaping his way out of the way of that gleaming blade, like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, bowing his back gracefully, poetically, and of course in slow motion, out of the path of air-bending bullets. Reeves wears black in all three of those movies, Houdini is of course, black.  All he needs is a pair of sunglasses to complete the daydream.

I have respect for Houdini this morning, and by association I suppose, now the entire bunny species.  Houdini manages to bring some of the childhood fantasy back to life, Now if he could just learn to hop a little higher.

World's Apart

The sun sets a little earlier every night it seems, as the temperatures nose dive and settle into gentle icy, rounded hills of lofty snow, that stand proudly on street curbs and at the end of driveways, after the seasons first winter storm.  On television, commercials are already beginning to entice children with promises of mountains of toys on Christmas day.  In the lawn of a perfectly manicured, expansive South Jordan home, bedazzled with cherry wood shutters, and beige stonework, a large oak statute of a moose, adorned with a Santa hat, and highlighted with hundreds of twinkly lights signals the beginning of the warm holiday season,  the little girl who lives there will grab the wooden cheeks and squeal, "Hello moose!"

At the corner of Stagg and depot Streets in Midvale, Utah, the temperatures seem a bit colder, the snow a touch deeper, and darker, those mounds of what used to be brilliant white, are now splattered, soiled and splashed with tar like mud shed by thousands of aimless, passing cars.   The small, weary neighborhood of manufactured homes, is almost an afterthought, oddly dropped in the middle of metal shops, car repair joints and vast fields filled with lumber shrink wrapped and ready for shipment.   If you weren't looking for it you would surely pass it by.

The trailer homes, have long since lost their newness, and are now patched together by cardboard, masking tape, and plywood. Scattered among them, sit several rusting RVs.  Once built to prowl the open road, filled with blue haired ladies and their potbellied retired sailors husbands, sporting baseball caps honoring the U.S.S Alabama, now instead, these rolling fortresses are wedged preposterously and likely illegally among the handmade plywood sheds, to the west, and manufactured homes to the east, and an illogical, pock marked cinder block wall to the south.  These RVs are no longer rambling the highway, but are now homes to men, women and children who have found themselves with no other options.

Number 49 is the one for which I'm looking.  The Unified Police Department says it is ground zero for an aggravated kidnapping attempt and robbery that ended with the arrest of two men.  Officers spent the lion's share of the day working on this case.  According to them, two men came to 49 and argued with it's owner over a car swap, eventually pulling a gun on him, before he runs away and they steal his car.

I was hoping to speak to the owner of this metal house, but when I knock on the hollow, flimsy door, there is no answer.  The dented shell is adorned on one window with tinfoil to keep the heat in, and on another with plastic wrap to keep the cold out.

In this neighborhood, a knock on the door is met with suspicion.  At the house next to 49, I rap on the worn screen door, only to see the lights flick off and the TV go dark and mute.  Whoever lives here, has likely learned, that when the bell rings after dark, it's best to let the ringer move on to the next house.

As photographer David Yost shoots video of the rumpled metal house, a boy on his aging Huffy peddles by.  As he veers close to me, he eyes me carefully, wondering, perhaps, if I'm an cop.  I smile and he returns the gesture, as his rusty bike, sounding like it's owner is hording a box of mice, squeaks away.

Near a red, creased, peeling mobile home, that is weighted down with pots pans, tools and duck tape, I meet a man named Alex.  He is kind, and not at all concerned about my presence in his neighborhood, we talk casually, and he tells me the owner of number 49 is a hard working scrap metal collector, just like Alex.  He says, the man is nice, and has never had any problems with police before.  Alex excuses himself at about 5:30, and says he has to get back to work, then climbs into an ancient red pickup driven by his wife or girlfriend, and the two head out to track down more scrap.

As I load into our news truck and David plunks his camera down into a sliding protective draw, two girls, likely 11 or 12, pass by coat-less  and snuggle together, as they giggle and laugh about boys, or school, or gym class, they seem as happy as that little girl in South Jordan, who is greeted every morning by a towering wooden moose.  All three girls, it seems to me, will dream of a Christmas filled with gifts and good cheer, despite living only a few miles, but yet, worlds apart.

A Single Question

Lynn Presley is the kind of man who seems destined to be a governor, congressman, or senator.  He is handsome, whip-smart, and charming.  As Chancery Clerk of Jackson County Mississippi (basically the Chief Financial Officer) Presley, knows every crack and crevice of the county's massive budget.  It turns out, when you know all the cracks and crevices, you know where to hid the money so you can steal it later.  In Presley's case, he did just that, and spent years in federal prison, after making a mind boggling confession to me, just months before he is charged with embezzlement.

Jackson County Courthouse

In 1997, as a young, overworked, understaffed bureau cheif at WLOX-TV in Pascagoula, I spend much of my day just trying to keep up with car crashes, stabbings and convenience store robberies.  Understanding the dark recesses of the painfully boring county budget is far off my radar.

"I'm tellin' ya boy," pontificates County Supervisor Burt Patterson, from his large desk in the back off of his Ocean Springs, Mississippi pharmacy, "Just ask some questions about the Chancery Clerk's office son, now that's your job right?"  Patterson, has always been ominously vague with me, often trying to guide me towards corruption with nudges that include few clues, but with the ominous admonishment of "ain't that your job, go on down to the sheriff's office and ask some questions!"  Without telling me who or what to ask about.

Today, Patterson is a bit more candid.  The County's port authority is in need of money from a fund managed by Presley, but for some reason he just won't give it up,  Patterson, has called for an audit but the results are not yet in.  Finally, stabbing the air with his stubby finger, he shouts, "go on down to Presley's office an' ask him, 'where's that port money at?!"

"Hello son," Presley greets me at his office, with a firm handshake, grabbing my elbow and pulling me in closely, "How are you young man?"  Presley, as always, is gracious, even during the late night budget hearings during the year, he is always kind, and welcoming.

"I'm good sir," I dribble nervously.  Presley cuts an impressive figure, and I often find myself tongue tied and intimidated by his sheer presence.  I often stumble into his office, dragging unwieldy camera gear, with cables dragging behind me like tin cans trailing from a married couples 1978 Ford Fairmont, and sweating, from long hours baking in the oppressive Mississippi sun.  I am often foraging around in a pair of rumpled Docker slacks, and Polo shirt that is often creased and always darkened by my own sweat.

Presley is dapper, and perfectly quaffed, not draped in an over sized seersucker suit or suspenders, like you might expect from deep in the deepest parts of the south, but rather, he cuts an impressive figure, in a tailored black suit, with expensive hand woven ties.

"What can I do you for you young man?"  He settles into his large leather chair, and bows the seat back, slapping his fine leather shoes onto his desk, and interlacing his fingers behind  his head.

"Um," I sputter, "it's the Port money," I slowly suggest, "uh-huh, uh-huh," he blurts with confidence, "well, I guess the question is: Why won't you just give it to them?"
He quickly jerks his feet off the desk, and unlaces his fingers from behind his distinguished brown and grey hair, and is sitting with his hands locked in front of him, "well son," he looks me in the eyes, "It's not there."  He says casually.

"Oh," I squint in confusion, "well.  Where is it?"  "Well, it's all over the place, I often use that money for loans." he suggests plainly."
"Um, to who?"
"Well, I loaned some to my cattle ranch, I loaned some to the mayor of Moss Point, I loaned some money to the guy who owns that fast food place in town."  He shuffles inside his desk and produces a copy of a check, but see, they always pay them back."
"Are these county loans?"
"no sir, no sir, I'd say they are personal loans,"
"Wait, you are making personal loans, to your cattle ranch and other people, out of county funds?"
"Yes sir, but as I mentioned young man, they always pay them back."
"But," dumbfounded, "I don't think you can do that."
"well the rules are foggy son, again, the money always gets put right back in."

As I wander to my car after the astonishing confession, Burt Patterson pulls up in his dark colored Crown Victoria, "Did you talk to Presley?" Dazed I drag my eyes to the portly pharmacist, "I did,"
"And?" He demands.
"He says he doesn't have the money, he says he loaned it out." I blurt.
Patterson's mouth slowly gapes open, he twists his head forward violently then screeches off.

As I tap away  at my computer in my worn Market Street office, the phone rings, it's Presley, "Hello young man," he says meekly, "that conversation we had today, my belief is:  That was off the record."
"Uh, well, no, not really sir."  After a significant pause he continues, "Do you intend of reporting on our conversation?"
"I do."
Another long pause, "Young man, let me warn you," his voice trails to a threatening whisper, and continues, "I took you into my confidence, in an effort to help you in the right direction, I had no intention for this story to be about me."  I gulp deeply, and spill a shaky response, "well sir, this story is about you now," and I gently click the phone down.

In 1997 Presley is charged with 8 counts of embezzlement and admitted to stealing $320,000 dollars from the county coffers.  He spent 84 months in federal prison.

I don't know why he admitted his shell game to me.  Perhaps he thought his kindness in the past would insulate him from a scurrilous report.  Perhaps he believed I wasn't smart enough to connect the dots, or, as some have suggested, maybe he felt guilty and simply wanted to be caught.  No matter the reason, I learned, sometimes, a simple question is enough to unravel the complicated truth.

Information Underload

Sgt. Amy Maurer stands reluctantly in front of a half-moon configuration of cameras, photographers, and reporters.  Behind her is a post-apocalyptic scene, bustling with police, crowded with squad cars, and layered in yellow crime scene tape. Shrouded behind a short black curtain lay a body, next to that person, a car and an SUV, resting in place after what appears to be some sort of cataclysmic collision.

The scene, with Sgt. Maurer out of focus

Maurer, explains, someone has died, and an officer is injured, and that it all unfolded at "1:23 PM" but beyond that, the Sergeant, deflects every simple question with an even simpler retort of:  "I don't know."

Who shot who?  "I don't know." How did the cars end up like that?  "I don't know?"  Is the victim male or female?  "I don't know?"

Maurer, is patient, as she is peppered with questions for almost 10 minutes, she understands that the three bits of information she's handed the reporters is all she will volunteer.  Fellow journalists contort their question, hoping internally, that posing the inquiry with a different sentence structure will trick the West Valley City officer into accidentally spilling "the goods."   After several minutes, I literally throw my hands in the air and walk away from what is devolving into a comical scene.

Police must withhold fact sometimes from the public, if they don't they risk jeopardizing the investigation.  A poorly released piece of information could  damage the ability to get to the truth or taint a case when and if it ends up in front of a jury, but as I look from one face to another among my colleagues, I am impressed with how many jaws are literally hanging open.

As Maurer slinks away from the disappointed horde, reporters begin to talk about the remarkable lack of candor from police, "I've never seen anyting like this," one says shaking his head in disbelief. "What was that?" another asks, as a third, interjects, "that was unbelievable."

As I prepare for my live report, I spot a West Valley City Patrolman whom I know, he is standing sentinel in front of a squad car, lights peppering the quickly darkening night with blinding, quick red and blue pulses.

"How are you?" I ask, attempting to pass the time, "I'm good dude," he pops off jauntily, and without prompting, volunteers, "Sorry man, they have shut down information," he shakes his head grimly.  "Yeah," I squint my eyes and I shake my head, "why is that?"  Is it because of Susan Powell?"  I ask knowingly.

Susan Powell disappeared from her West Valley City home two Decembers ago.  Her husband, Josh was a suspect but was never arrested, later he would kill the couples two children in a ghastly fire he set, burning his home, his kids, and himself to the ground.

Susan Cox-Powell

West Valley City Police had been asked some difficult questions by the local media in the wake of  Josh's suicidal rampage, and at the same time, torched by the national press.  On this cool Friday evening, as investigators mill around the scene, my friend says the press scrutiny didn't help, but he admits, "the shutdown," of information, had begun in his words, "long before that."

Sgt. Maurer makes her hourly pilgrimage to the edge of the crime scene perimeter as she has promised reporters, and each time, her information basket is empty.  "I have to say," my eyes connecting with hers, "I get the sense that there is a concerted effort to hold back information," I pause, waiting for an answer, the dutiful sergeant's eyes widen, and her lips part, "uh," a squeak escapes, I  interrupt, "It seems..." I pause as I search for the right words, "dirty," she demurs.  "No," I say matter of factly, "I would never suggest, at this early stage, that police have done anything wrong," I move closer to her, "but I'm shocked, and surprised by how little information you are willing to give," I continue, "and all it does is force us reporters to seek the truth elsewhere, and fill in the blanks, perhaps in a way that the police may not like," I raise my eyebrow, and wait.  "I agree," she pulls her shoulders upwards to her ears in an exasperated shrug, then shakes her head, "I agree." her voice trails off as her eyes cast downward to her heavy black military style boot that is nudging a small pebble across the black pavement.

Danielle Willard, 21.

"I heard three or four shots," a witness tells me in his thick Eastern European accent.  Another woman, calling herself "Pinky," relays the scene of chaos, gunshots, the crunching of metal, and a woman laying on the pavement.  Derrick, a teenage transplant from West Virginia recalls, in his thick southern accent, an officer grabbing desperately for his knee, then tumbling to the ground.  All snap shots of of the full scene, one police are unwilling to explain.

Her name is Danielle Willard, she is 21 years old, I will learn from Danielle's mother several days later that her daughter was not armed when she was shot and killed by a pair of police detectives.   Melissa Kennedy says that is all she has learned from police.  The other threads from that afternoon, she has heard from witnesses who have approached her,  or things she has hunted down on the Internet, or unburied on blogs.  Kennedy is just three days away from burying her daughter when she agrees to meet me in the parking lot of the funeral home, where her baby girl now lay.

"I'm patient." she tells me,  Kennedy's mind is swirling with questions, something about that afternoon doesn't sit right, but she says "I'm might have to wait for the investigation to come to an end," I say to her, "I agree," echoing the words Sgt. Maurer gave me just a few days prior.

It's Not So Bad

Here it is.  Election day, Finally! It has been a raucous campaign cycle.  On the national level, President Obama and Governor Romney have exchanged body blows for 18 months.  Here in Utah, Mayor Mia Love and Congressmen Jim Matheson, if the rules would have allowed it, might have entered an MMA ring to determine who would win the 4th congressional district in Utah.

The nastiness of the battles have many longing for the more gentile days of American politics, particularly hearkening back to the stately, distinguished days of our founding fathers, to which I say, "what are you smoking?"

Our political history is littered with smear campaigns, lies and even murder.  In fact you could argue the founding father's wrote the book on ugly politics.  Historian Edward Larson said of the FF's "They could write like angels and scheme like demons,"


Thomas "The Brawler," Jefferson VS. John "The Crippler," Adams

As George Washington prepared for retirement from the presidency, a frenzied fight was unfolding behind the scenes.  Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, with the help of their surrogates, where as Larson suggests, "scheming" to be the next president.   Jefferson hired James Callendar to do a hit job on Adams, and Callendar did it in spades writing that Adams was:

"a hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."

Did the guy on the two dollar bill just call John Adams a "hermaphrodite?"

Adams wasn't a saint either, in return, the team that supported the soon-to-be second president of the United States and signer of the Constitution said this of Jefferson:

 "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father ... raised wholly on hoe-cake (made of coarse-ground Southern corn), bacon, and hominy, with an occasional change of fricasseed bullfrog. ..."

Team Adams was also quick to label Jefferson, who supported the French Revolution, a dictatorial, homicidal maniac if elected.

"Murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will all be openly taught and practiced, the air will be rent with the cries of the distressed, the soil will be soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes."


The Pimp VS. The Killer

In the election of 1812, Andrew Jackson accused John Quincy Adams of serving as a pimp for the Russian Czar, to return the favor, Adams suggested that Jackson had killed defectors during his time as a general during the war of 1812.

Miscellaneous Pot Shots

1) Davy Crockett accused the portly Martin Van Buren of wearing a corset.

2) Opponents of President James Buchanan, who had a congenital condition that caused his head to tilt to the left, started a whisper campaign claiming that J.B. had once tried to unsuccessfully hang himself.

3) Grover Cleveland was accused by his opponent James Blaine of fathering an illegitimate child, that he allegedly left fatherless.  At Blaine rally's the crowd would chant, "Ma, Ma, where's my pa?"  After Cleveland won the presidency, that year, his supporters responded with the chant, "gone to the White House, Ha, ha, ha!"

The Big Ugly

Politics never got as ugly as it did in 1800's when Aaron Burr,  Vice-President of the United States called out Alexander Hamilton for a duel.  Burr, was about to be dropped from the Jefferson ticket and had lost a couple of political races and he felt that Hamilton was the guy who'd done him in politically.  In 1804 he shot and killed Hamilton in New Jersey.  

After Hamilton died, President Jefferson did indeed dump Burr, probably not a bad idea, Ironically Burr was never charged with killing Hamilton.  Burr would spend the rest of his life trying to start revolutions and generally raising hell around the world.

So, as you pine for the good ol' days this election day remember the words of Billy Joel, "The good old days weren't always good, and tomorrow's not as bad as it seems."

"Shoe less" Mia Love

Mia Love isn't wearing shoes.  The mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, a woman who is on the precipice of knocking off 6 term congressman Jim Matheson, to take her seat in one of the most vaunted chambers in American politics, is barefoot.  Love knows I am coming.  The mayor has just been tapped by the Republican National Committee to speak at the nominating convention for Mitt Romney in Tampa, Florida, and our assignment desk has arrange for me to show up with a camera at Love's new and spacious Saratoga Springs home.  She is dressed like a congresswoman might dress, Orange power blouse, brown power suit, but no shoes, and no socks.

Mia Love speaks at the Republican National Convention

Love is an indefinably disciplined candidate who seldom, if ever veers off script.  Even in casual conversation, she, sometimes with awkward adherence, will not drift from her talking points.  "Man this must be exciting, and nerve wracking as well," I attempt to make small talk as photographer Matt Michela sets up lights in anticipation of our interview   Love, isn't going to break from character, "it's an opportunity to talk about real issues that affect real Utahn's," she recites, unwilling to express giddiness  fear, or awe, about the surreal world in which this once unknown mayor from a tiny Utah town has now been thrust.   

During our interview  Love is confident, energetic and bold, if not repetitive.  The answers I hear today, do not vary significantly from the quotes she's given to other newspaper reporters and TV journalists in the past.  

When I ask her if race, (Love is black, the daughter of Haitian immigrants) may have been a factor in her selection as a speaker at the Republican National Convention, she pulls out a soundbite I've heard before, "Saratoga Springs does not have the highest bond rating in the state of Utah because I'm black," she repeats.  I understand her reluctance to veer from script, at the time, she is 15 points behind the incumbent  and she certainty doesn't want to utter a gaffe that would end up destroying her then slim chance of knocking off Matheson in November.

"What do you think about Todd Akin's comments?" I ask, referring to the Missouri Republican, who had just made that infamous "legitimate rape," statement that was exploding into a full-fledged media disaster for his run for the US Senate race in the "Show-me State."  

It was a question the mayor hadn't received in the past, and one for which she was not prepared, "Well we don't know what happens in a person's personal life," Love wanders, searching for an answer, before shutting down the meandering word grasp and finally concluding, that she doesn't adhere to Akin's views.

Congressman Jim Matheson

As Matt removes the lapel mic from Love's collar, I flopped down casually onto her large leather sofa, "We might be sending someone to cover your speech," I  announce, to which a man with a shaved head,  and oddly ornate button-down shirt whose been standing nearby, silently texting and emailing on his smart phone, finally interject curtly, "who?"  Probably Decker," I say benignly, referring to our eccentric, political reporter, Rod Decker, a surly  disheveled  yet thoroughly entertaining, and wildly competent reporter.  Decker is a Utah institution, he  doesn't delivery his stories as much as he bellows them into his microphone, peaking the VU meters on the control board back at the station.  "We've got nothing to say to him," announces the bald man.  "Listen," Love says, eyes burrowing into mine, "if you are fair to us, you will get your access.  If not..." Love trails off, leaving the rest of her  sentence a mystery for me to interpret as I will.  

"Well," I say to the woman who may be the next representative from Utah's 4th District, "You'll find, if you win, some stories will be positive, some stories will be negative, but in the end, the coverage will even out and be fair overall."  Love just stares at me, unconvinced  unmoved, and silent at my answer.  

"well," I slap me palms together, "it's nice to meet you mayor, good luck in Florida." I turn and head towards the large, heavy oak front door of her home. "What time will this be on?" she asks, "Four, Five and 6 PM," I answer.  "OK," she moves in closer, eyes locked on mine, "I'm going to watch them all," she warns, "each and every one of them,"  her eyes squint, then she smiles, "have a good day," she announces as she rustles her bare feet across the pile carpet and escorts me to the door.