Episode 75, with guests Mike McCurry and David Beaubaire (and guest co-host Kevin Sullivan)


Mike McCurry and David Beaubaire are our guests this week.
Guest co-host Kevin Sullivan, president of Kevin Sullivan Communications
Show produced by Katherine Caperton.
Original Air Date: October 13, 2012 on SiriusXM “POTUS” Channel 124.
Polioptics airs regularly on POTUS on Saturdays at 6 am, 12 noon and 6 pm.
Follow us on Twitter @Polioptics Listen to the show by clicking on the bar above.
Show also available for download on Apple iTunes by clicking here.

This week, on our 75th broadcast (25 days before election day), we go down to earth in Kentucky with Paul Ryan and Joe Biden and we soar in the air with Denzel Washington (or at least with the Paramount suit behind Denzel’s newest film, FLIGHT, from Paramount Pictures, due in theaters November 2.

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To start things off, we check in with our old friend Kevin Sullivan of Kevin Sullivan Communications and former Communications Director for President George W. Bush. He had some pointed thoughts about the Vice Presidential debate in Danville, Kentucky, declaring the edge for Representative Paul Ryan. In 24 hours of polling and tweeting following the debate, there were many who concurred with Kevin, and a seemingly equal number who disagreed. No knockout. No game changer. No altered narrative. The two combatants did largely what we thought they’d do. My Polioptics take on the result: interesting, full of color, worthy of deconstruction, but ultimately inconsequential.

Mike McCurry

The VP debate, as well as the Presidential Debate a week ago, demand more technical Polioptics analysis, and I offer some of my thoughts in the course of our 75th show. And there is no better person to bounce these ideas off than one of the potentates who steward the Commission on Presidential Debates, C0-Chiarman Mike McCurry, the former White House Press Secretary under President Clinton and a guy I’m proud to call a friend.

I first jumped on the McCurry bandwagon as a kid out of college in 1987 working for Sen. Paul Simon in New Hampshire. Mike was the press secretary for another presidential candidate, former Arizona Governor (and later Interior Secretary) Bruce Babbit. While our bow-tied candidate moved through Manchester in his wingtips, Babbitt & McCurry spent their time on the campaign trail in hiking boots winding their way up the White Mountains. Very Polioptics!

* * *

Following our conversation with Mike, we take off into the skies above the Southeast U.S. with another alumni

The one-sheet for FLIGHT, in theaters Nov. 2, thanks to Beaubaire

of the Clinton White House, my friend David Beaubaire, now Executive Vice President of Production at Paramount Pictures.

David and I were kids in the White House together in the nineties, and then he went Hollywood, following a path to success with diligence and perseverance, first at Warner Bros. than at Dreamworks and now at Paramount.

Paramount has a new film coming out days before election day — FLIGHT — starring Denzel Washington, the first live action picture by Robert Zemeckis since his film with Tom Hanks — CAST AWAY — in 2000. David’s job is shepherding blockbusters like FLIGHT from idea to script, through development and onto the Silver Screen. In our conversation, he gives listeners a drive-on pass to the studio lot and a peek behind-the-scenes at the process that gets a big budget picture finally into the theaters.

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