By Traci Angel
Photograph courtesy of CNN
Covering politics fits Candy Crowley like a batting glove fits Albert Pujols. The St. Louis native is CNN’s senior political correspondent, reporting on political races and legislative developments on Capitol Hill. She is also a panelist on CNN’s On the Story.
She grew up in St. Louis, attended Randolph-Macon Women’s College in Virginia and worked for the Associated Press and NBC before settling into her gig at CNN.
Over the course of her career she has covered the presidential campaigns of George H.W. Bush, Pat Buchanan, Bob Dole, Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson, Edward Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Paul Tsongas and George W. Bush, receiving several awards in the process.
We caught up with Crowley when she was in town last October to cover the presidential debate at Washington University.
What’s your St. Louis connection? I was born in Kalamazoo, Mich., but moved to St. Louis when I was 6 months old. My dad was born here and lived here his whole life, except when we were in Michigan. We lived in Creve Coeur in the ’50s. It was really early on—there were ponds and fields and no Interstate 270.
What do you remember about growing up? Halloweens when you took off and were gone for hours. Snow days. There were whole winters when we went sledding downhill. Playing hide-and-seek. It is a lot different than my kids, who grew up in Washington, D.C., where on Halloween we would only go to one house of someone I knew.
Any favorite traditions? Sunday brunch at Schneithorst’s and going to Steak ’n Shake for malts.
Do you get the impression people don’t trust the media? When people approach me they say the most wonderful things. People do make references to reports and say “You should have mentioned ‘X,’” or “You should have mentioned ‘Y,’” but always in a very nice way. One thing about sticking around a while [in journalism] is people start to trust you. I do see the distrust in the polls and in e-mail. I think people look at the news media and see a conspiracy left or right depending on who you are. What they don’t realize is that the media is too messy and too chaotic to have such a conspiracy.
Why are Missouri and its voters watched so closely by political pundits? The Heartland is the spine of America. If you are from the East Coast, there is the tendency to think of the Midwest as quaint. But these are the people candidates need to get votes from. This is the backbone, the heart of America.
