There’s a cluster of framed photos atop a filing cabinet in Marc Rayfield’s corner office in the Center City building where WYSP and KYW Radio have their studios. Two of the pictures really jump out at you. One shows Rayfield and his family frolicking with former Phillies ace Steve Carlton. In the other, Rayfield is posing with President Obama in a hallway at the White House.

This may disappoint you, but the behind-the-scenes story I’m going to tell is not about the “Lefty” photo, but about the Obama one, because it’s going to help you understand something about Marc Rayfield.

It’s August 2009. Obama has invited WPHT radio talker Michael Smerconish to interview him at the White House. Rayfield is along because he’s Smerconish’s boss, in charge of CBS Radio’s five Philadelphia stations. Rayfield is a Democrat who supported Obama even in the primaries—odd for a guy who runs a conservative talk station, but we’ll get to that.

After the interview, Rayfield gets a moment of his own with the President. Both men are tall and lean. Both have two young daughters, and they commiserate about the joys of fatherhood. (Both men were left by their fathers when they were very young.) Rayfield remembers that in his jacket there’s a blank birthday card he’d picked up for his daughter.

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