MANCHESTER, N.H. – The sorts of things you see behind the scenes of the MySpace/MTV Presidential Dialogue* with John McCain…

McCain already arrived, and the bloggers traveling with me have already trudged past the Straight Talk Express, which made its way through about five inches of snow to get here. (They’re pretty good about plowing the roads here.) In the “press room” – the stage of the arena that is hosting the event – they were playing and replaying McCain’s arrival: The bus pulls up, an aide puts an extra step down, and a cheerful McCain bounds down the stairs.

MTV’s Gideon Yago – wearing those square intellectual glasses – is there to greet him, and, he thinks, to do a quick pre-interview. “Senator McCain, are you excited to be participating in tonight’s presidential dialogue?”

“I am excited. Hey gang! I’m about to go do Hardball now, but I’ll see you all inside!” And with that, he’s off. Yago wants to ask a follow-up question, but McCain is already two steps ahead of him, and greeting and high-fiving a vocal and cheerful group of maybe between a dozen and two dozen college-age supporters with signs. Yago follows, but is too late. As Yago and his cameraman’s chase comes to an end at the door, the camera’s gaze lowers to the floor in what must have been either disappointment or frustration.

One wonders how MTV feels about McCain mentioning he’s about to go do an MSNBC show during his entrance.

The event will be broadcast live on MTV this evening, starting at 7 p.m.

One of the attendees, a young woman, chose to attend in a full snowman costume. Is she just emulating the weather outside? Or is this the return of the snowman question from the YouTube debate?

* See disclosure of MySpace’s covering the expenses of this New Hampshire trip here.