Prepping for the President

In Jean Becker and Tom Collamore's Don't Tell the President, an oral history of the world of presidential advance, the authors provide a sense of what it's like to do advance work for a president or presidential candidate. Although this type of work has in some ways become easier with the advent of smartphones that allow teams to maintain contact with White House or campaign headquarters at all times, advance men and women are typically sent out to remote locations with minimal supervision and maximal responsibility. These teams face real, hard deadlines. The president will be at a certain time or place. The advance people must make sure everything runs smoothly. If they do their job perfectly, no one will notice. But if they screw up, the failed event will be blasted all over the evening news and the next day's headlines and become the fodder for late-night comics and the candidate's electoral foes.

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