Or, The best sentence I read today, from the NY Times magazine profile of Mike Huckabee:
"I met Huckabee for lunch at an Olive Garden restaurant in Midtown Manhattan. (I had offered to take him anywhere he wanted and then vetoed his first choice, T.G.I. Friday's.)"
Now I know he's lost 100 pounds and may have food issues, but anywhere you want to go in Manhattan for free and those are your top two choices?
Maybe he thinks the Olive Garden is an homage to the Mount of Olives? or the Garden of Gethsemane?
5 comments:
At this stage of the campaign, every word and every action of a candidate is carefully scrutinized. Picking a gourmet restaurant might be the equivalent of John Edwards' $400 haircut.
Candidates must appear to be "regular folks". There's method to his blandness.
I like anonymous's thoughts on wanting to appear down-to-earth and folksy.
But why couldn't he ask the interviewer to recommend a good diner?
I wonder how much those restaurants donated to his campaign...
"Regular folks" don't come to NYC and go to TGI Fridays or Olive Garden.
Regular people get a slice, a gyro, a tamale from the woman who sells them in front of the Mexican embassy on 39th street. Maybe head down to Curry Hill for some, well, curry.
Regular people who come to NYC and are trying to eat healthy get sushi from any of the hundreds of fantastic take out places that will be cheaper than Olive Garden at Times Square. Or is Mr. Huckabee afraid he will get teased back on the playground for eating sushi? Wuss.
Since Huckabee isn't a New Yorker, he probably doesn't know of any good restaurants in NYC, and he probably doesn't have the time to spend going through Zagat's. Thus, like most of middle-america, he defaults to the chains that he does know about. Picking a NYC restaurant without research is highly tuned skill that those outside of NYC don't have.
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