The reporters come to trail the politicians. This was all part of a system that has been perfected over decades. Their presence was something to be tolerated. (Bernie Sanders was conspicuously absent.)īut all of them, one after the other, messed up the flow of the picket line. And some, like Tom Steyer, accompanied by a single staffer and ignored by most of the press, just looked happy to be invited. Others, like Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden, looked awkward and nervous, pale, spectral wonks in white Oxford shirts dropped into a seething horde of humanity and forced to carry “No Justice, No Peace” signs, unable to quite pull off the angry working-class look. Some of the candidates, like Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, looked natural, familiar with the rhythm of pickets. Cameramen walking backwards tripped over curbs microphone-waving reporters bumped into strikers union staffers had to join arms and form human shields around the more popular candidates, just to keep the march moving. One by one, each taking their turn in the spotlight, and each accompanied by a seething scrum of press, they plowed their way down the the picket line like speedboats slicing through a river.
