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Something special in the air Politics in Red, White and BlueBy Rick Horowitz
HARRISBURG, PA -- You want to throw a successful political event, it helps to have a few things working for you. A picturesque backdrop is always nice -- a bunting-bedecked state capitol like the one right here, for instance. A crowd big enough to fill the space and then some -- several thousand eager (or at least curious) Pennsylvanians will do nicely. A brief but rousing introduction from a popular local politician -- Gov. Tom Ridge, say -- who actually knows and likes the honored guest. A punchy little speech from the candidate, of course -- George W. Bush, for example, in fine, firm voice (though there will be that unfortunate moment when he promises the crowd "a campaign that lifts the spirit's country!") It all adds up. And then for that little something extra, you want people like Jason Herrera. Jason Herrera does confetti. Jason Herrera is a confetti roadie. "Arkansas, Ohio, Kentucky..." He ticks off previous stops on this particular Bush tour, a swing-state journey that will eventually sweep into Philadelphia to claim the GOP nomination. "Michigan, Ohio..." He ticks off some upcoming destinations, once Bush brings down the convention curtain and hits the trail again. Campaigns like color. Jason Herrera adds color -- a big plastic bagful of red, white and blue. Herrera, a 23-year-old from Pittsburgh, arrives on the scene not long before the candidate himself, setting up shop perhaps 75 feet from the podium, in front of the cameras, directly behind the crowd. He's got bright blond hair partly hidden under a black Adidas cap. Black shirt, black pants, black shoes. Three gold loops in his left ear, a thin silver chain around his neck. Also silver: a four-foot-tall, 50-pound tank of carbon dioxide, which he's methodically connecting to a long black tube-ish contraption that looks like the horn of Great-Grammy's old gramophone. He adjusts the tube until its opening points straight up. He could be planning a cloud-seeding experiment. He could be toting the world's most ear-splitting air horn. Nope. Better than that. (And quieter.) The carbon dioxide drives a turbine, he explains; the turbine creates a vacuum that, at the appropriate moment in the day's proceedings, will suck in the hand-fed confetti and shoot it skyward. "Fifty feet high," he says -- when conditions are right. This is Herrera's first outdoor event on the current swing. Indoors, there aren't any breezes, let alone gusts, to contend with. Outdoors? You take your chances. Outdoors, you also have to make sure your confetti is biodegradable. That means paper confetti -- none of that shiny Mylar stuff. Indoors, you can just sweep it all away, Mylar included. You never realized that confetti was so complicated, did you? Herrera is one of four confetti shooters at today's event -- two behind the crowd, and one on each side. The company he works for used to specialize in balloons, he says, until they started getting a stronger reaction to their "confetti effects." So they shifted their focus from inflated things to fluttery things. Herrera and his colleagues actually started this campaign working for John McCain. That one didn't go the distance, but the Bush people had been paying close attention to their rival's operation -- and not just his position on tax cuts. "They saw the effects," Herrera explains, and they liked what they saw. Welcome to Bush World -- was it hard to make the switch? "You just go with the flow." And in just a few minutes, Herrera will start the flow. The candidate will finish his speech, the crowd will cheer, someone will cue the music and then: It's confetti time! The stars and stripes and circles will soar into the air, float back to earth. For a minute or two, there'll be spectacle, and pageantry. Then Jason Herrera will pack up his gear and do it all again somewhere else. Posted 8/2/00. Rick
does it again all campaign long. Tell your friends and neighbors!
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Rick Horowitz