If New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio hadn’t already dropped out of the 2020 presidential race, #bagelgate might have been the nail in the coffin.
His Jan. 15 tweet praising a toasted bagel on National Bagel Day instantly set off hardline bagel devotees-cum-voters. De Blasio quickly amended his tweet to delete the word “toasted.” But the damage was already done. Purists scorned the very idea of toasting a bagel, calling into question his bona fides as a New Yorker.
The outrage over bagel protocol may seem silly. But few acts are as personal as eating, and food is closely intertwined with place and culture.
For a politician, food might seem like a low-hanging fruit. Is there an easier way to appeal to the masses? Everyone, after all, eats.
But when politicians wade into local food customs, they do so at their own risk. My research on presidents and first ladies suggests that uninformed assumptions about food often get candidates and elected officials in trouble.
Bill de Blasio isn’t the first politician to run afoul of food norms and face the wrath of voters. And he certainly won’t be the last.
Culinary campaign calamities
Most political wannabes try hard to bridge the gap between their wealthy backgrounds and the rest of us. It rarely works.
During the 1976 presidential campaign, incumbent president Gerald Ford, before the eyes of bewildered Texans, peeled back the aluminum foil – but not the corn husk – and took a giant bite out of a tamale. Ford never lived it down.
In 2003, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry unwittingly broke food norms when he ordered Swiss cheese for his Philly cheese steak instead of Cheese Whiz. Nine years later, Republican Mitt Romney asked for a “sub” in Pennsylvania, where, as locals will tell you, they call them hoagies. And Romney again made himself an easy target for mockery in 2019, when the millionaire businessman claimed his favorite type of meat was a hot dog.
Pizza is treacherous terrain: Republicans Donald Trump, Sarah Palin and John Kasich have all faced withering criticism for eating pizza with a fork. Bill de Blasio made the same mistake, too, in what was dubbed “forkgate.”
But no food has a greater potential for campaign catastrophe than the corn dog. The optics of state fair corn dog consumption are never good. The web is full of wince-worthy photos of Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Bernie Sanders all struggling to maintain their dignity while biting into a battered, oversized wiener popsicle.
Better to be a vegan like Cory Booker – and avoid them altogether – than be seen on the wrong side of the corn dog. That may be one rule that a majority of voters can agree on.
You’re out of touch…
Other politicians are either unaware – or don’t care – about their elitism.
In 1972, the beer-swilling, working-class regulars in a Youngstown, Ohio bar cringed when Democratic vice presidential candidate Sargent Shriver hollered, “Make mine a Courvoisier!”
Obama also made the mistake of asking for Dijon mustard – and no ketchup – for his cheeseburger. Fox News host Sean Hannity let him have it, calling him “President Poupon.”
The producers of an infamous 2004 attack ad damned Democratic presidential aspirant Howard Dean for his elitism. Not surprisingly, food played a role.
Dean, the ad sneered, was a “latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show.”
[embedded content]In an infamous ad, the Club for Growth derides Howard Dean as a ‘sushi-eating…left-wing freak show.’
These gastronomic tales show how the semiotics of what and how we eat matter profoundly to millions of people.
On the one hand, to transgress is to risk looking inauthentic, disrespectful or foolish – none of which is sound politics.
On the other hand, unabashedly embracing the latest health food trends can get a politician ridiculed as elitist and out of touch.
Perhaps the best outcome is simply to win. A president can indulge in guilty gastronomic pleasures. Ronald Reagan loved his jelly beans, George H.W. Bush couldn’t put down his pork rinds and Bill Clinton, until his heart surgeries, was irresistibly drawn to McDonald’s.
For political candidates, however, a shrewd understanding of American eating habits is the recommended minimum daily requirement on the campaign trail.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
