The View From Radio Row

photos © 2008 Talk Radio News Service

Laura Ingraham broadcasting from radio row in New Hampshire.

Ellen Ratner, founder of Talk Radio News Service (TRNS), and former presidential candidate Tom Tancredo.

Presidential candidate Mike Gravel. (NWEF's Adele Stan blogs in the background.)

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Thanks to our friends at Talk Radio News Service, the National Women's Editorial Forum has an inside view of the madness known as radio row here at the Center of New Hampshire Radisson Hotel, where the national and local media have all clustered for coverage of the first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

In two hotel meeting rooms talk radio hosts occupy tables laden with microphones and computers, and representatives from all the campaigns come and make the rounds. Behind me, right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham holds court. At the table next to hers, New Hampshire's own Arnie Arnesen receives her guests. Arnesen was just named as one of the nation's "most valuable progressives" by The Nation magazine.

This morning, the place experienced a major swarm of Hillary Clinton's surrogates, along with representatives from virtually all the presidential campaigns, Democrat and Republican. A few chairs down from me, David Bonior, the former congressman who chairs the John Edwards campaign, is giving an interview to University of New Mexico radio. Over in the corner, Republican candidate Ron Paul is being mobbed by both radio and television folks.

Me, I'm just trying to keep from getting knocked in the head with a mic or a television camera.

--Adele M. Stan