by Matt Saldaña
Photo by Matt Saldaña
January 6, 2008
“One more,” John Edwards said, as he drained another shot from the free-throw line at a high school gym in Lebanon, N.H. The court was bare, except for a ring of supporters and photographers who dutifully remained outside the paint.
The Edwards campaign had over-booked the adjacent band practice room for a Saturday pre-debate speech—a modest accomplishment compared to Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who packed thousands into high school gyms in Nashua and Penacook earlier that day. (Clinton earned a moment of TV attention when she told the fire marshal in Penacook that there ought to be room for a few more attendees.) The fire marshal in Lebanon was less magnanimous, and the excess crowd at Edwards’ speech were forced to listen “in stereo” over the school’s P.A. system.
Before his speech, Edwards treated the gym-class rejects to an ad-hoc shooting clinic. After missing 10 in a row, he made just as many—refraining from political metaphor as he focused, intensely, on making just one more.
[View the entire article at the Independent Weekly.]