Smile, I'm on candid camera

The Jon Powers campaign has been trying to get me to come to one of their meet-n-greets for over a month.

Last night, with the kids at my mothers and my wife at work, I decided to make the trek out to North Tonawanda to Soos' Cafe to meet the candidates staff and hopefully run into a couple listeners.

There were probably 30 to 40 people at this little shin-dig, which was part meet-n-greet and part fundraiser. As a member of the media, who attempts to maintain some independence, I'd like to point out that I was not a paying customer at this gig.

But the Powers staff was very nice - a young group of people - who seem to have it together, actually. And I did meet a couple listeners ... and some fellow members of the media.

Jon talked a lot about his time in Iraq ... in addition to his campaign. Next time I have him on radio, I'm going to ask him to share some of his Iraq stories, which were rather gripping.

A note on the photo: I asked the photographer to keep me out of the pictures, to which he replied, "then don't stand near the candidate." Obviously, I failed on that account.

Actually, I spent about 10 minutes talked with the candidate, mainly about the inner workings of his campaign. After his speech, he had a QnA. I asked him about his thoughts on getting our soldiers out of Iraq. He said once we have a new president, he's hoping for 16 to 18 months to have the troops "redeployed" (elsewhere).