»In which politics sound fun, for a change

From the '04 campaign to the premature '08 campaign, not much has changed. Least of all, the food on the trail: fried, deep-fried, or chicken-fried (yum!).

The barbecue, the clambake, the chili contest, the fish fry, the hamburger cookout, the pancake social, the fried-chicken potluck, the spaghetti dinner -- these are the great entrees of American politics precisely because almost anyone can cook them and pretty much everybody likes them. Sure, the exact recipes differ from place to place, like accents, but that's the point. Political food contains the core contradiction of America, our profound differences and essential sameness all on one plate. Nothing puts a politician more at ease than being able to sing our national unity and diversity at the same time. And what says E Pluribus Unum as literally and zestily as a bowl of four-alarm chili?

The candidates are “for all intents and purposes out of control of their diets,” said Walter Scheib, former White House chef to the Clintons and the Bushes. Many big events on the preprimary calendar — the Harkin Steak Fry in Iowa; the Clyburn Fish Fry in South Carolina; the Iowa State Fair, an everything-fry — seem as likely to produce heart attacks as votes.

Those wanting to be president must never, ever refuse or fumble the local specialties, lest they repeat the sins of John Kerry (dismissed as effete when he ordered a Philly cheese steak with Swiss in 2004) or Gerald R. Ford (on a 1976 swing through Texas, he bit into a tamale with the corn husk still on).

That last bit, about Ford -- well, it's just too easy. I was chastised in fourth grade for repeating the bit about walking and chewing gum, which I had probably picked up from my father or from Doonesbury.