In June, Idaho Reports producer Seth Ogilvie and I headed to Moscow to cover the now-infamous Idaho Republican state convention. Like the delegates, we didn’t know what would happen when we got there, but we knew the weekend had the potential to be chaotic. We were right; the convention dissolved into a three-day political brawl, ending in adjournment before delegates could elect a party chairman. The fight over party control is now heading to court, and talk of the convention is heating up again.
In the month since the convention, we’ve received a few messages and phone calls from journalists and Republicans alike hoping to view our tape from the June 14th general session. This week, we decided to release all the unedited footage we have. That way, no one can accuse us of playing favorites by providing the video to certain people, and the same footage is available to everyone.
There are a few important things to keep in mind:
1. We didn’t tape the whole event. As anyone who was there knows, it was an hours-long process that included multiple recesses and breaks (and a painfully long roll call), and we were trying to preserve our battery for the duration of the meeting, which had the potential to drag into the evening. We hit record when there was action.
2. We don’t have the moment Labrador said adjournment would mean leadership would stay the same. At the time, the Ada County delegation was leaving, and Seth was getting footage of that.
3. This is the raw footage. It hasn’t gone through editing to make it pretty. You’ll see out-of-context B-roll and a lot of stops and starts.
That said, here you go.
-Melissa
