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It was a busy political scene on this three-day MLK holiday weekend, and that certainly eliminated hope of any rest for the weary (read: me). John Edwards showed up to stump in the house of labor as the city was blanketed (thinly) with some panic-inducing snow, and I went down to cover it for this week’s Choose or Lose story. While I was talking to another Young Dem on camera after the rally seemed to be over, someone started shushing everyone and when I turned around, Edwards was right behind me, preparing to have a mini press gaggle. Since I was there representin’ the yout’s, I asked him how he hoped to capture much of the youth vote now that it seems to be flocking toward the new, shinier ooh-ahh candidate. Edwards said he was going to keep talking about the important issues.

Yeah, the poor guy is so screwed. Here’s the video:

The next morning, at least 3 times as many people (I have calibrated eyeballs, trust me) braved 17-degree cold — way worse than a little snow — to stand outside in line for over an hour at the MLK Center to attend church services with Barack Obama. Lucky for me, I was standing in the right place at the right time when an Obama staffer came out to pull any media stragglers out of the crowd and through the side gate. “You’re media, aren’t you,” asked some random guy who saw my spiffy hat and frozen-solid camera. “Uh, yeah, sure,” I muttered and quickly ducked through the line and toward the staffer who was taking a quick headcount.

“Who are you with?”

“Uh, MTV’s Choose or Lose?”

“Did you RSVP?”

“Uh, no, sorry.”

“That’s okay, just go check in inside.” Well, there’s some tight security for ya. When I got inside another staffer with a clipboard and a refrigerator-sized Secret Service agent were making sure all the random press were who they said they were. Except me; I just told the girl I was told to check in here, and she said that’s fine, just go up the stairs. My spiffy commando hat was so convincing he didn’t even stroke me with his metal-detector wand.

They told us upstairs that live video was prohibited to all but a few pre-ordained network cameras, and I had to put my camcorder back in my bag. That was probably for the best, as I’m sure the miniDV tape inside would have shattered into powder had I actually hit the record button after 45 minutes of sub-freezing soak. I couldn’t even take a still photo for 10 minutes because every surface of my little Powershot was instantly covered in condensate as soon as I exposed it to ambient air; luckily I was standing right next to a jillion-watt spotlight that provided a nice current of hot air with which to bake my gadgets dry.

You wanna talk about an inferiority complex? Hang out in a church balcony snapping candids with your pocket-sized Powershot surrounded by a couple dozen massive DSLRs sporting telephoto lenses that can see the American flag on the Sea of Tranquility. Hey guys, I’m totally press! Check me out!

Except I’m not totally press, as I’ve already discussed. I’m something other. And after Obama gave his church speech and the campaign staff shuffled the press across the street for a really boring photo-op at the King tomb, my otherness became even more painfully apparent.

The media were herded into a cordoned-off area in front of the tomb and set up all their cameras along the edge of the pool, where they’d get a lovely shot of Obama placing a commemorative wreath. I followed suit and put my wee camcorder up on my skinny tripod in between two major media juggernauts. Had I stayed put, I might’ve been fine, but it’s hard to stay put when it’s well below freezing. I backed out of the camera line and began pacing in the open space, looking across the street to see when Obama would be coming over. At some point, a Secret Service agent must have seen my chest with its distinct lack of any press credentials and decided to come interrogate me.

Yeah, you heard right: lack of press credentials. I forgot to mention that last week when I was describing the otherness of the MTV Choose or Lose Street Team. While we got many a nice gadget in our backpack, two things we wouldn’t be getting that elicited a few groans and puzzled questions from the team were a press badge and one o’ them logo boxes to stick on our microphones for extra street cred. It was emphasized to us that we were citizen journalists (again, as I’ve said, not quite accurate anymore) and thus would not get such standard fare of the old guard. A letter attesting to our journalistic (or journalist-esque) mission on company masthead signed by MTV’s VP of News should be all the authenticity we need, we were told.

As Mr. Big Scary Armed Secret Service guy started asking me where the hell my credentials were and I stammered on about checking in at the lobby and didn’t get a thingy and uh uh uh — I reached into my coat pocket and produced my multi-colored fancy letter of credential from the VP of MTV News.

“Yeah, but see I don’t know who the hell that is, so you’re gonna have to leave, NOW.”

It’s a good thing everybody’s ears were already bright red from the cold, because I was definitely being stared at by some of the old guard, safe and secure behind their superfancy laminated plastic nametags. For want of a nail, the shoe was lost….

Suffice it to say, that sucked ass.

The rationale behind our lack of shiny laminated nametags and the hypothetical legal liability from which that decision may have stemmed are a complete mystery to me. What it was about unpaid, even-less-official news hounds contributing to Off the Bus that allowed them to get press credentials from the Huffington Post is also a mystery to me.

Why I was a retard who didn’t think to wear his Huffington Post press credentials for security’s sake is another mystery, but one that won’t be repeated after that little ordeal.