Who's #2? Keep an eye on Obama's and McCain's planes

As the Democrats roll out their convention speakers and seasoned political observers parse those press releases to winnow the list of potential running mates for Barack Obama, it's worth recalling who broke the news four years ago that John F. Kerry had selected John Edwards.

It wasn't the presidential candidate. It was a guy with the handle "aerosmith," posting on an aviation message board.

Bryan Smith, a US Airways mechanic, arrived at work on June 5, 2004, the day before Kerry gathered reporters at his wife's estate near Pittsburgh and formally announced that Edwards was his No. 2. As Smith told NPR, he was passing through a hangar at the Pittsburgh airport to get to his work area "when I was informed by, I am assuming, Mr. Kerry's people that I should not peek in that hangar and that it was, in fact, closed for the day."

So he did what you would have done: Every time he passed through that hangar that day, he took a look.

"Around 6 that evening, I peeked in and saw they were putting John Edwards' name on the airplane," he said. "They concealed it rather quickly -- they taped paper over the logos. I just happened to peek in at the right time."

When Smith got home from work, he went to his computer and "just put it on this chat room -– something for us to talk about in the airline business." But he didn't think about calling reporters, he said, and the mainstream media didn't pick up on his scoop.

If you get the scoop on either running mate -– for Obama or for John McCain -– please don't make that same mistake. Top of the Ticket is here 24/7.

-- Leslie Hoffecker

Photo credit: Gene J. Puskar / Associated Press

Comments

[JN]

funny....

[Kala]

No longer can Americans trust the media, which was given special constitutional privileges to look out for the folks."Obama is an empty suit. From the day he was sworn in to the Senate to the date he declared his run for the presidency, is only 145 days on the job. He has literally no experience. (Not figuratively, literally!) He's not qualified to run a Dairy Queen.

Proven Obama has most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate. Obama is to the left of Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Russ Feingold, Pat Leahy and Barbara Boxer. That's extremely difficult to do. Obama is a textbook big-government, tax-and-spend liberal. He plans to raise income tax rates, capital gains tax rates, Social Security taxes (by virtue of eliminating the cap), dividend taxes, inheritance taxes, and introduce a slew of new taxes. His plan will destroy this country

To ALL the obamakins and of course the bias CNN & MSNBC I have one simple request. Please spare me the hope and the change bull, and the Bush's third term, McSame etc… Please just tell American voters what qualifies Barack Obama to run this country. What qualifies him to oversee our $14 trillion economy, the largest on earth? What qualifies him to be commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces in a time of war? Please just give me one single solid qualification. And race does not qualify!! That would be one more than anyone including cable media has provided to date. WE ALL HAVE GROWN EXTREMLY TIRED OF MEDIA SAINTED OBAMA….

Obama keeps reaching back to Chicago political past for policy advisers, and pulling one despicable, vile, and even evil “rabbit” after another out of his hat.
The list of Barack Obama’s radical associations is long and it keeps getting longer. Some are now well-known, but many are not. They need to be.
23 years at TUCC with Jeremiah Wright and James Meeks. racist sermons on Youtube.
He chose the most radical church in the country; chose to immerse himself in hard-core ideological radicalism. Never before has this country considered such a radical leftist for its chief executive.

Michael Pfleger and his hateful and race-hating ramblings, Obama met while carrying out his own radical social activism as community organizer at ACORN, (radical organization)

Penny Pritzker, heads Obama camp National Finance Committee was president of Superior Bank - massively failed and she literally bought her way out of jail paying $460 MILLION fine; was the very epicenter of subprime loan scandal” that would come to eat this nation’s financial system alive.

Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson, former head of Obama’s vice presidential selection committee, discovered he benefited from sweetheart loans from subprime king Countrywide.

Tony Rezko certainly and his federal indictments and financial dealing with Obamas of course and William Ayers, US terrorist bomber, Obama-co-lecturer, fellow board member, neighbor, and friend.

Communist Frank Marshall Davis, obama mentor; Saul Alinsky and Gerald Kellman (Kellman’s Woods Fund is how Obama hooked up with terrorist William Ayers)

Chicago lawyer Mazen Asbahi, appointed as Obama camp national coord for Muslim n affairs also stepped down after news about his stint on the fund’s board - which includes fundamentalist imam - prompting The Wall Street Journal inquiries about relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood and his long personal relationship with Hamas Jamal Said.

Obama desperately needs voters to forget hes the son of a Muslim father who served an incredibly brutal and corrupt Kenyan government; to forget he attended a madrassa in Indonesia and practiced Islam; forget that he campaigned in Kenya on behalf of Raila Odinga, who relied upon chaos, corruption, and violence in his campaign; numerous associations with radical Muslims; forget the photographs of Obama in traditional Muslim clothes, hanging with Muslim radicals such as Mazen Asbahi and anti-Semite Rashid Khalidi.

The mainstream media has frankly put the security of our great country at risk with an Obama coronation media like CNN & MSNBC is the only way Obama managed to steal the Dem nom. It’s extremely concerning that so many Americans could care less about who their candidate really is?? simply amazing and frankly scarey.

www.dontvoteobama.net

[08vote]

...it's Gov Kaine, you clueless dumb azzez at Top of the Ticket Anti-Obama rantings....

[scootmandubious]

I have to admit, this post was highly entertaining, reading your appeal to get that Veep scoop first.

May I suggest you make it worth a poster's while to pass that highly sought-after information along....here's an idea....how about a "Top Of The Ticket" t-shirt?!

Just a thought.

[Tom J]

I bet Kala is a 9/11 'truther', too.
I looked at the link he/she supplied, and it's a pro-Clinton (PUMA-type) site. They just don't give up, do they?

[mgm]

re: JN comments

so, according to the obama conspiracy idiots out there, obama is both a (presumably godless) communist and a (presumably fanatically religious) muslim?

also, if you want to get into political philosophy, the press were not "given" special constitutional privileges. civil liberties such as freedom of the press (and expression broadly) are assumed to be inherent (i.e., those "certain inalienable rights" from the declaration of independence), not bestowed by the state. as this is a cornerstone of the whole "we're a christian nation" argument, you should probably know that.