Breaking with tradition, Secret Service agents have accompanied both Democratic candidates from the start of the season, continuing to follow former First Lady Hillary Clinton, who’s been under their care since leaving the White House in 2001, and joining Barack Obama’s campaign for the first time in May 2007–earlier than any other presidential hopeful in history–after he reported receiving death threats. That’s meant traffic jams, pat-downs, metal detectors, comprehensive sweeps and bomb dogs at every campaign stop, plus less in-person access to the candidates themselves. The one bright spot: John McCain. In contrast to Clinton and Obama, he has long declined protection, preferring instead to enjoy the “relative freedom of delving into unscreened crowds and riding Amtrak trains unencumbered by an entourage.“It’s the inconvenience it causes people,” he explained last November, even claiming that he would scale back his Secret Service detail if elected president. “It’s a waste of the taxpayers money. It’s just everything I don’t like.” Which is why it came as such an unwelcome surprise for reporters to learn in late April that the Arizona senator, bowing to wife Cindy’s concerns, had finally accepted protection. “Certainly, having Secret Service protection impacts people’s lives,” former deputy director Barbara Riggs told ABC News. No duh, responded the press corp.
But according to my colleague Holly Bailey, who’s traveling with McCain in Ohio today, it turns out that the new boys on the bus aren’t all bad. Speeding to the Columbus airport this morning–the cameramen needed to arrive before the senator to snap a shot of him boarding the plane–McCain’s press bus was pulled over by a local motorcycle cop. 65 mph in a 55-mph zone, he said. But just as the officer was about to write a ticket, a Secret Service agent intervened–and, after flashing his badge and mumbling a few words, was able to get the driver off with a mere warning.
Who knew these guys were so powerful?
