The recent burst of news about former President Jimmy Carter brought me back to that time when he campaigned in El Paso, showing me how federal government officials (staff?) interact with the American public and the hope of something better.

It was October 8, 1976 and I was one of the three El Paso Herald-Post photographers assigned to cover arrival at the El Paso airport. Of course my first memory of the day is all about food – I stopped at the Campus Queen for 2 beef and cheese burritos because they were easy to eat while driving. These weren’t so perfect though; the first one dripped cheese on my pants. I didn’t have time to go home to change, so off I went to the Transient Terminal.

When I got to the airport terminal in my grease-stained Levis cords I was told that I could either be on the tarmac where the national press corps would be gathered (penned?) or in the crowd (I did snap some photos of the crowd as I walked to the pen) .

We couldn’t move between the candidate meeting the Democratic Party greeters at the base of the airplane or into the crowd (it was either because of security or crowd control, but I blamed the campaign). So, like most of the local press, I decided to wait at the base for Peanut One.

The plane arrived, the national press corps disembarked and everyone got into position. As a still photographer I knelt in front of the scrum and when Mr. Carter descended the stairs to greet the local dignitaries I started to stand, but found a foot in my camera bag holding me down. I figured it was one of the national photogs, but no, it was El Paso Channel 9’s Jeff Gates who was shooting silent film behind me (using one of the Bell & Howell hand-crank camera that I later used when I went to work for him a couple of years later).

Should I have been surprised how we were treated by the national press, the Secret Service and the campaign itself? Nah. The campaign’s goal was to control the media and control the message (there’s another story about how we were treated by the Ft. Bliss PIO but that’s for another time); the national media was just attempting to capture the moment. But the fact that a presidential candidate came to our town was big news for us, no matter how small it was for the campaign.

In my time working in the small media market of El Paso at both a daily paper and the number three rated TV news station in the 70’s and 80’s, I was frustrated whenever I had to interact with the feds.

Not a lot has changed since Jimmy Carter came to El Paso in 1976. The perpetual campaign persists. And I don’t think I was ever able to get that stain out of my pants.