The sleek corporate jet chartered for the media by the Clinton campaign descended smoothly onto the icy tarmac of the Mason City, Iowa municipal airport yesterday morning, wheels coming to a reassuring halt while the candidate's plane was still airborne. But as reporters began unbuckling, gnawing the last of their gourmet muffins and fiddling their BlackBerries, a thin, blue spume of smoke filled the cabin and the pilot cheerfully advised all aboard to get off, you know, right away.
It turned out that the Gulfstream's rotors had picked up some of the gravel and dirt spread on the pavement and burned. No big deal. Everybody started joking, the stewardess gamely skidded around on her stilettos and all wondered when the vans would arrive to pull them out of the 20-degree bluster.
The someone mentioned that Clinton's event was at the Surf Ballroom on Buddy Holly Dr. in nearby Clear Lake. Ring a bell? someone asked.
Then it dawned that the icy runway underfoot was, in fact, the spot where Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Richie Valens left the night of their fatal Feb. 1959 crash. The trio had just left the Surf.
The press plane eventually had to be towed from the runway, but not before forcing Clinton's jet to circle the airport for the better part of an hour, aggravating the 300 or so supporters waiting to greet her at the ballroom. The plane was replaced, the press flew on uneventfully to a pair of other events, and Clinton used the tale to justify her lateness, explaining how, as always, she had been slowed down by the media.
-- Glenn Thrush in Des Moines