Bill Clinton's rural barnstorming offers opportunities for a wide range of news coverage

When presidential campaigns come to rural America, they generate the widest possible range of news coverage, from the local weekly newspaper to international networks. It's a chance for rural journalists to blend solid local color with big issues, and an opportunity for regional dailies to try new approaches. Both efforts were on display in Kentucky today, after former President Bill Clinton's visit yesterday to Mount Sterling, Ky., population 5,900.

Mike Wynn of The Winchester Sun, a 7,000-circulation daily published in an adjoining county, had a solid lead: "During a rare campaign stop in Mount Sterling Monday, former President Bill Clinton called on voters to ignore naysayers and shore up support for his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, as Kentucky heads into a historic Democratic primary today. The rally was part of a last-minute swing through the Bluegrass region as the Clinton camp seeks to secure a majority in the national popular vote despite Sen. Barack Obama’s continual gains in the delegate count."

Wynn's story laid out the issues for local voters. Katheran Wasson took the photo above and also wrote a story about Michelle Obama campaigning in nearby Lexington. The local metropolitan daily, the Lexington Herald-Leader, wrapped up the Kentucky barnstorming by Obama and the Clintons and advanced today's election in a story by Ryan Alessi. But it also featured on its front page, and for awhile led its Web site, with a first-person account from Kenn Johnson, a writer and retired English teacher whose wife was recruited to help the campaign find a place for the former president to speak.

"After an hour or so with no luck finding a suitable site, my wife mentioned that our house might meet the qualifications: a front porch, a level lawn and understanding neighbors. They wanted something decidedly New Deal middle class. No tax-breaks-for-the-rich mansion," wrote Johnson, left. "My wife was beside herself with joy. Bill Clinton's visit would be the best thing to happen to her since she tossed her underwear at a Tom Jones concert."

(Johnson's "New Deal" reference struck a chord with those of us who have been to the Franklin D. Roosevelt home and library in Hyde Park, N.Y., and seen the photograph of FDR campaigning in Mount Sterling in 1920, when he was the Democratic nominee for vice president.)

"Much to my wife's embarrassment, the Secret Service insisted that the former president enter through our basement, the one part of the house she allows me to use without much interference," Johnson wrote. "He complimented me on my bathroom downstairs and mentioned he liked the poster of Hemingway hung behind the toilet. My wife groaned, but I was proud that my toilet had served such an historic purpose. ... I am going to get a little rope like you see in museums and drape it in front of my bathroom door. Instead of 'George Washington Slept Here,' the sign will say, 'Bill Clinton Used This Toilet.'" (Read more)

The weekly Mount Sterling Advocate covered Clinton, but does not plan to post its story until Friday, the day after its print edition is published. That is normal practice for the paper's Web site. However, it did post results from the primary election.