Somebody has to be first. In this race, Mike Quigley was first because I've worked with Tom Bowen before, interviewing his candidate in the IL-14 special election. It was among the first things we talked about after I learned that he would be taking over the Quigley campaign.
I visited the northside on Sunday. As I arrived, the Quigley headquarters was buzzing, with almost everyone on the phone. Tom was excited, asking me if I'd gotten his email about their new website, More Transit, outlining Quigley's proposal for more public transit funding to be included in the stimulus package. Since I hadn't, he got out his laptop to show me.
The questions I ask are derived from prior cycle's interviews, as well as my request for input. They split about half and half, half from prior election years and half the questions from the other area bloggers who posed questions for the candidates.
Candidates are provided the questions in advance. I tell every campaign that this isn't "Hardball" and I don't pretend to be Tim Russert. Rather, the point is to give voters the opportunity to compare the candidates side-by-side, to see how they answer the same questions, and to give them the opportunity to get their message out.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I asked Quigley how he would respond to the criticism that we have seen on several blogs about him being "too valuable" to elect to Congress. That really fired him up and got him in the mood for this. The video itself is a little more than 11 minutes long, mostly because Quigley just cruised through it. He knew what he wanted to say and said it. It took me longer to set up and break down than the interview itself!
