Radio days volume 18

I suppose I got that out of the way.

Not sure if it was the format, the way my morning was going, or perhaps I just got out of the wrong side of the bed (which would really be sad because I get out of the same side every day) but I really feel like I let the Wicomico GOP down today.

Have you ever had one of those times where you have six thoughts running through your head and none of them want to come out in any order? That was me this morning. And I sure wasn’t going to get any help from the peanut gallery since the other two on the panel were way out there on the left side of the political spectrum. It was as if I was a duck hunter and I was surprised so badly that so many ducks were sitting there that I forgot to grab my shotgun.

And what really makes me mad is that once we got out of the more formal setting I could talk like a normal human being. Aaaarrrrgggh!

It was just something about being out of the comfort zone of sitting here in my sweats and having time to think about what I want to say and how to best present it that makes it hard for me to adjust to doing broadcast interviews. Some people who do these on a regular basis get more accustomed to it, and I used to be a lot better at these when I was a regular guest on local radio – the first fourteen of this series where I write about my radio appearances were written in a time span between March of 2007 and June of 2008. So I was appearing about once a month back then, but since I have only done radio once in 2009, once in 2011, and once in 2012.

Anyway, I was the first one to appear for today. I assumed it would be just Don Rush, Mike Pretl and I but the second arrival was Michael O’Loughlin, a Salisbury University political science professor who was added to the bill as another “progressive” voice. So in essence it was three against one.

We were supposed to talk about the State of the Union addresses and various reactions, but there was an added subject thrown in as it was learned yesterday that the university’s NPR affiliates would both be relocating and one may undergo significant changes. That took the first few minutes.

So I received the first question and started to respond, and I think I did okay. But it was when Mike Pretl said something which planted about six thoughts in my mind and those trains of thought went right off the tracks. And it’s really, really frustrating because I know in my heart and mind we are on the right side of practically every issue. Obamacare is going to be a trainwreck, the economy isn’t going to get better soon, and instead of focusing on jobs, President Obama is talking about “green energy” and gun control. I know you know that all the gun laws in the world weren’t going to stop Newtown.

And then we had the Hoover reference, which I parlayed into a return to Coolidge-era policies. Hoover really was a big-government Republican like George W. Bush, but I made the mistake of throwing the name out there without historical context. “Silent Cal” was President during the Roaring Twenties, when government was trimmed to size after the excesses of Woodrow Wilson and World War I.

Overall, I know I can do better – perhaps I’m my own worst critic, but I have performed well on that stage in the past. Now I may be back on that show, or I may not, But if you’d like to help me out with a little practice and you’re in the media, let me know. I like doing radio, but opportunities seem to be few and far between.