Dipdive Interview Exclusive: Ron Brownstein, LA Times Writer

Over on the floor of the Austin office, I bum some free Wi-Fi and send e-mails. I hear a familiar voice talking about the significance of the Obama campaign. I’m pretty sure he’s a reporter — he’s holding a notepad and no one holds a notepad that’s not the press — but why is he doing all the talking?
I hear someone say his name. It’s Ron Brownstein, the LA Times writer. I follow him to the bathroom, wait and then grab him when he comes out, asking him what he’s writing about.
“What I’m focusing on,” he says, “is the incredible level of engagement the campaign has produced on both sides — both the Clinton side and the Obama side. Whoever wins, we’re living through a historic race that’s not only unprecedented but is probably going to change the way people run for president in the future.”
Brownstein continued, “Joe Trippi [advisor to the Edwards campaign] talked about a world where a million people realize they could fund a presidential campaign by giving a hundred dollars each. We’re going to blow the doors way past that. The Democratic nominee is probably going to have well over two million individual donors. Maybe three. Maybe three-and-a-half, who knows? With the way the campaign is going, it could be four! Each time we’re hitting a natural limit, we just explode beyond it. Turnout, volunteers, fundraising — in any measurement you want, we are seeing unprecedented levels of engagement.”
I ask him the hardest hitting question I can think of: “Is the press biased towards Obama?”
“I know the Clinton people feel that way,” he says. “I would say that to the extent that there is a collective zeitgeist in the press, there’s a tendency to make a bigger deal out of trivia with Clinton than with Obama — like that big flurry of whether she tipped the waitress last fall in Iowa. That would not have been a story with Obama. On the other hand,” he continues, “It’s hard to imagine another candidate who lost eleven straight contests in the month of February that would still be taken seriously by the press and considered to have at least one more bite at the apple in Ohio and Texas.”
Before he runs off, he reiterates his initial point. “This is an extraordinary campaign,” he enthuses. “Both candidates are running what amounts to general election campaigns in the primaries: we’re seeing general election crowds, general election volunteers. We’re seeing two of the strongest primary candidates there have ever been. I’m not sure who would have beaten either of these candidates except the other. Maybe Bill Clinton in 1992, but would Walter Mondale have beaten either one of them? Would Gary Hart? Michael Dukakis? Al Gore? John Kerry? One of them has to lose, but they’ve both run extraordinary campaigns.”
– Hillel Aron
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