LESS CAMPAIGN ROAD SEX: The true priorities of campaign reporting, in a nostalgic Travel Section report on the historic Wayfarer Inn in Manchester, New Hampshire, and how campaign reporting has changed.

"We are all so much more boring now," explained Tucker Carlson, the co-host of "Crossfire" on CNN, who recalled being challenged to a late-night bar fight at the Wayfarer in the 1990's. "At least I know I am. Everybody has been turned into a wire service reporter. Hardly anybody drinks anymore. Put it this way, it's hard to be drunk if you are always filing to the Web or appearing on TV."

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"In the good old days," Ms. Warren said, "reporters used to swap tips about the best bars and restaurants. Now, it is all about which hotels have gone wireless or have the best hours in their business center."

WHAT technology has brought us is more reporters and more competition," said Chuck Todd, editor in chief of The Hotline, a political newsletter. "And more competition means less time for alcohol. God only knows what this has done to campaign road sex. You used to be able to keep an eye on your competition just by sitting at the bar. There were enough bar stools at the Wayfarer to go around for all the top reporters. That's not the case anymore."

"Everybody used to hang out, waiting to see who would show up," said Nance Carrier, who has been a bartender at the Wayfarer for 23 years. Over the years, Ms. Carrier observed, "The Boys on the Bus" have become a bit tamer. "For the most part, I would say that they are now more sippers," she said. "They just sit there and sip their drink slowly, and you almost want to tell them that it is a five dollar cover charge just to sit at the bar."

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For his part, Mr. Germond, who retired in 2000 from The Baltimore Sun after publishing "Fat Man in a Middle Seat: Forty Years of Covering Politics" in 1999, laughed heartily when remembering his Wayfarer days, and the gift of the barstool. "You couldn't have the rooms that they called Waterside, because the ducks in the pond would wake you up at 6 in the morning. You wanted to be housed in the Upper Falls building."

Mr. Brokaw acknowledged that some of the fun is now missing from campaign coverage, recalling again that birthday party in 2000. "I remember Jack came up to me at that party we had at the Wayfarer for him," Mr. Brokaw said. "We had a whole corner reserved. We were watching the Super Bowl on the one hand, talking politics on the other and celebrating Jack. Jack threw his arm around me and said, `Brokaw, these kids today are going to the gym and drinking Perrier water at the end of the day. I've got to get out of this business.' "

Where's Hunter S. Thompson when you need him? (This is a rhetorical question; he's actually not all that far from me, as the coconut-bearing swallow flies.)

Read The Rest if you're into nostalgia about campaign reporting.