FIRST PERSON

Cokie Roberts On The Days Of Gavel-To-Gavel Coverage

As Told By Lisa Caruso

Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2008


First PersonBroadcast journalists remember the days when they covered the conventions live from gavel to gavel--and they had real news to report and big scoops to score.
• Bob Schieffer
• Dan Rather
• Cokie Roberts
• Ted Koppel

Back in 1980, we [at National Public Radio] covered the entire convention every day live. We called it broom-to-broom coverage. So we finished late every night, but all of the bars in Detroit, where the convention was held, closed around midnight. So we would drive over the border to Canada and go drinking at the aptly named Radio Cafe in Windsor. [Republican political operative] John Sears was doing commentary for us, and we'd be in the car and he'd be saying, "Isn't this exciting, we're going to a foreign country." And he regaled us over beers with stories about Reagan and Nixon. The stories really just confirmed what we already knew about Nixon, that he was the most awkward human being. I don't really remember the details, but over a beer at 3 o'clock in the morning, they were a riot.

The 1988 convention in New Orleans, my hometown, was in every way fabulous. Wonderful people. Great food. My mother [then-Rep. Lindy Boggs] had a series of parties at her house on Bourbon Street, and I can remember saying to my daughter, who was staying with her, "Now, you've never been in a house with this many hundreds of Republicans, so hide your jewelry!"

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