When lining up guests for my first few weeks of The Lead, Stephen Colbert was a natural. His sister is running for Congress in South Carolina – her primary is on March 19, the day after my first show – and I’ve known Colbert now for almost a decade. After all, he was once a campaign reporter.

It was a cold Iowa winter’s day in 2004 when I first met him. The turn of events began when my producer Max and I became determined to get an interview with Howard Dean. The Vermont governor was beginning to tank in the polls just a few days before the Democratic caucuses, and we figured a reaction from him could get me on the news.

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