As predicted, we were shut out. We just didn’t predict how far we’d be shut out.
Reporter John Herrick and I went to Essex to get a photo of Gov. Chris Christie entering the Vermont GOP Winter Gala event at the Champlain Valley Expo.
It was a dumb idea for several reasons: 1. We knew we were unlikely to get the photo; 2. We knew we wouldn’t have access to the building, so that would mean standing around in the cold for several hours; 3. Herrick was wearing a raincoat and no hat.
Fortunately, we weren’t the only ones with this cockamamy idea. We had compatriots who were as foolish and determined as we were: The Fox-44 and WCAX vans were there, and Nancy Remsen of the Burlington Free Press and Paul Heintz of Seven Days were on the scene.
Party officials, security and police officers refused to let us anywhere near the doorway to the Blue Ribbon Pavilion at the Champlain Valley Fairgrounds and relegated us to the chain link fence on the edge of the property. So we stood for about an hour and a half outside the entrance gate, jumping up and down to keep warm and waving at the GOP attendees driving past.
At one point, we took our chances and wandered in, only to be chided by security who were backed up by several young police officers who looked as though they relished the thought of carting us off.
We didn’t get our photo, but for a few hours the press corps came together in solidarity around a fundamental democratic idea — that the public has a right to know what their elected officials are up to.
