She’s covered the presidential campaigns of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, to name a few. She scored an exclusive interview with George W. Bush just days before he left office. And since the nomination of Jimmy Carter, she’s covered every national political convention save one. But when asked about her rundown for next week’s “State of the Union” as the new host of the CNN show, Candy Crowley told Yeas & Nays, “At the moment I’m thinking ‘Wow (laugh), we are going to do this next Sunday.’ ”
Although the public learned of her promotion over the weekend, Crowley’s been tight-lipped since Wednesday. She started talks with CNN executives the week of Thanksgiving about taking over the anchor chair from John King, who is moving to a new evening political news show.
“When they asked me Wednesday night not to tell anyone, I said, ‘I’m going to tell my children,’ ” Crowley said. Her children, who are currently in New Zealand, fist pumped over Skype to the good news, she said.
The promotion makes her the only female host in the Sunday morning network lineup. But for Crowley, entering the boys club is more of a journalistic step than a gender one.
“If you said to me, ‘Candy, describe yourself,’ it would go something like this: mother, journalist and then friend, and then somewhere down the line, it would say woman,” Crowley said.
The “that is cool” moment finally hit her Sunday, she said, when she received floods of e-mails from women in the business, especially when she heard from two journos she admires, Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff.
“All people that whacked the weeds of the forest so that I was able to walk,” Crowley said.
But how will the show change under her reign?
“I don’t know,” she said. “Only I do know it will, and here’s why. One of the things that [CNN/U.S. President] Jon Klein said to me when he offered me the job was, ‘I don’t want this to be Candy doing John King’s show, I want this to be Candy doing Candy’s show.’ ”
CNN has yet to choose the executive producer for “State of the Union” but will start talks this week.
