I hate all the “who would you rather have a beer with” stuff but it’s amazing how badly Romney fails that test. “Where do you get your hoagies?” “It’s amazing!”
There’s a side of me that just can’t see this cat being president.
(via the post-punk David Broder)
Update. This appears not to be parody but who knows these days:
In actuality, Mitt was contrasting the ridiculous over-regulation of the public sector, with the efficiency of the private sector, and used the electronic ordering system at WAWAs as an example…
So he’s not an out-of-touch weirdo talking about how amazing it is that you can buy “hoagies” on a touch-screen, he’s an out-of-touch weirdo using the purchase of “hoagies” on a touch-screen as an example of the awesomeness of the free market.
BGinCHI
Now some yahoo can please tell us what a WaWa is?
Romney could be talking about anything and he’d sound like that. He needs a software upgrade. Or maybe firmware.
harlana
Chris Cilliza’s mouth is just agape there for a few seconds.
How about those “kitchen table” meetings with ordinary folk? He just looks like he is in so much pain. Google Romney images and tell me what you see.
There’s only one explanation for why a man of Mitt’s means, character and disposition is putting himself through the torture of trying to relate to the help.
Metrosexual Black AbeJ
@BGinCHI:
It’s like a 7-11. They have them in Pennsylvania a lot.
Jennifer
The RomBot just got turned on because he didn’t have to interface with a human at WaWa.
gogol's wife
@harlana:
What is the explanation? I really don’t get it. He does not seem to be having fun, even to the extent that McCain did, which wasn’t much.
Keith
Mitt also like lamp.
shortstop
There’s so much to love in this short, short video:
1) Romney talking about hoagies to Pennsylvanians to begin with, thinking he’s “connecting” with them.
2) Romney segueing into talking about hoagies purchased at gas stations.
3) Romney throwing out the name of a rival hoagie establishment in an obvious “my staff briefed me on this” kind of way.
4) Romney’s gee-whiz-can-you-believe-it reaction to the existence of touch screens.
5) Romney referring to touch screens as “touchtone key pads.” (This might be my favoritest thing he’s ever said.)
6) Chris Cilizza’s face when it was all over.
Did I miss anything?
Sasha
And with Obama, you’d get home-brew.
Hill Dweller
Willard is an awful candidate. The beltway press knows it, which is why they’re furiously trying to cover up his daily lies and ineptitude.
Thoughtcrime
@BGinCHI:
Something that makes your guitar gently weep?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDCP4UeXgw8
MoeLarryAndJesus
It would have been funnier if he’d been to a Sheetz.
the Conster
If the Villagers are going to fixate on this bullshit out of touch stuff rather than his lying and cowardice, so be it. Whatever it fucking takes to get the Villagers to start showing him as the hideous simulacrum he is, I’m all for it. The media tide turned against McCain when he started denying his BFF press buddies access in 2008, and gave them all a sad and they started to write the OH NOES WHERES MAVERICK? columns that ended up showing him as the grumpy hot headed old fart he always was.
gogol's wife
@shortstop:
This stilted “local color” shtick he does everywhere he goes is so nauseating.
shortstop
Some commenter here once made me fall down laughing when s/he predicted the contents of a Romney staffer’s future tell-all book. Something like, “We tried to brief him on how non-rich people live, but it was too difficult for him to take in. We decided to come up with 25 phrases he could memorize in case he came in contact with various regional/ethnic/racial groups.” Well, it was funnier when the other person said it.
Steve
Say what you will, but the trees in Michigan actually are the right height.
harlana
Is he trying to tell us how wondrous it is that we, the common folk, have all these quaint little things like cookies and hoagies and people who don’t have health insurance, who can’t afford to pay their bills and mortgages? It’s just precious, it is.
cathyx
HE IS SO OUT OF TOUCH!
cathyx
It was like he was talking about a futuristic store that only a very few of us have been to.
Amir Khalid
You can’t even have cookies with Mitt, for crap’s sake. He’ll ask if you got them at 7-11. And He can’t recognize a doughnut on sight. I’m one of the least gregarious people on Earth, and even I can do better than that.
Mitt looks so ill at ease with regular people that it’s plain he doesn’t see himself as a regular people. And it’s just as plain that he doesn’t like them very much, either.
BGinCHI
I bet he asked his handlers:
“Are you sure I can eat a sandwich made by a touch screen machine? I’m running for President, for Pete’s sake!”
cathyx
People from Pennsylvania don’t get their hoagies at Wawa.
BGinCHI
Obama should challenge him to a one-on-one basketball game.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Watching it Mittens with the sound off Mittens comes across as like my dad acts when he is telling one of his shaggy dog stories; he’s BSing to the max,… over sandwiches,…
Odie Hugh Manatee
Rmoney is lavishing the praise on the sandwich seller to make up for dissing the cookie maker a while back.
Someone needs to rewrite his error handling routines, the programmers who wrote the code he runs on should be ashamed of their product.
phantomist
$10,000 he didn’t eat a hoagie from WaWa’s.
Warren Terra
What is this nonsense (at the link) about Romney saying he’ll take fewer foreign vacations than the Obamas? I don’t know if a President has ever taken a foreign vacation while in office; Wikipedia suggests not, at least for the last few I looked at, before I ran out of patience. I certainly don’t recall Barack Obama taking one (yes, Michelle Obama did, to Spain – and one of his daughters went on a trip her school annually takes to Mexico, which the press classily leaked beforehand, endangering a teenage girl to score political points).
beltane
Hey America, Mitt Rmoney thinks you’re icky and gross. He might steal your jobs, but the one thing he’ll never, ever do is have a beer with you.
This almost, almost, makes me appreciative of the Taco Bell eating Sarah Palin.
Michael G
Excuse me, but Mitt did not eat at a Wawa.
He clearly stated multiple times that he ate at a place called Wawas.
MattR
@cathyx:
They do when they’re drunk.
shortstop
@BGinCHI: Okay, but I insist that someone needs to get the president better pants for these sporting events. Reggie Love leaves and everything goes to hell.
beltane
Does Mitt plan on attending the biker rally in Sturgis like John McCain did? That would be a hoot.
Hunter Gathers
Unless scores of caucasian zombies show up at the polls, he never will be.
Roy G.
I don’t think it can break the Top Ten Dumb Romney quotes, but sometimes lameness cannot be fully encapsulated in a soundbite.
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/mittromney/a/Mitt-Romney-Quotes.htm
shortstop
@beltane: The universe could not possibly be that good to us.
JPL
So What.. When the Kerry ad appeared about his wind surfing all the networks carried it and now with Romney..nothing.
As mentioned before, I have an antenna and I will send fifty to the Obama campaign if the network news mentions this.
harlana
@gogol’s wife: I think it’s grounded in his faith and a belief that he’s the guy God wants to lead the country. I’m sure his family believes this and those are the only people he really cares about, imo. Of course, he’s not gonna bring that up, for obvious reasons.
I’d love to hear him be asked about it since past candidates, especially Dems, have been regularly grilled about their religion by the media.
Has everyone forgotten how much the media focused on religion in the last race? Well, of course it’s different now. He’s a republican and their feelings are like delicate little dandelion poofs. we must handle them with tenderness and extreme caution.
WWStBreitbartD
MSDNC Edited the Video
Another Ridiculous Lie From Liberal Media – Distorting Romney’s “WAWAs” Hoagie Speech
Now do a FAUX-POLOGIZE like ABL.
Libby
To be fair, I travel a fair amount and I’ve never seen or heard of WaWa. Which is not to say Romney trying to relate to the “common people” isn’t painful yet hilarious to watch.
schrodinger's cat
What is a hoagie? Does not sound appetizing.
He is not cool enough to be a cat, let alone President.
Xecky Gilchrist
Wow, wait’ll he sees the laser scanner at the grocery store.
harlana
@gogol’s wife: this is when McCain was having fun.
gene108
@BGinCHI:
Wawa is a nicer version of 7/11, in that they sell candy, chips, etc. and are open 24/7*
It is predominantly in the greater Philadelphia area (Philly, suburbs and South Jersey).
Big difference between Wawa and 7/11 is Wawa has a pretty good sandwich counter, where you can order various food items, such as bagels, mac & cheese, but most people end up getting hoagies (though for breakfast, I’m betting they get bagels or scrambled eggs – on a hoagie roll!)
Wawa’s moving south these days. I’ve seen them in Maryland and parts of Virginia.
*On some big holidays like Christmas Wawa actually closes at maybe 5 or 6 pm. Urban legend in these parts is the first time Wawa closed for a holiday, they had to call lock smiths in to open the front doors the next morning because no one had keys…the doors were never closed before.
P.S. I can understand why Mitt would be impressed by Wawa. It’s a great store concept, that really hasn’t been emulated. I’ve seen a Sheetz in North Carolina that sort of tries, but the quality of their food offerings is seems cheap compared to Wawa’s hoagies.
harlana
@Xecky Gilchrist: oh, and there’s this nutty thing those plebes do! they drive and park their own cars! it’s amazing!
JPL
@WWStBreitbartD: I did not link because I didn’t recognize the web site but I’ll let u know if I have to send money to the Obama campaign.. BTW.,.do you remember the news media..the liberal news media carrying Kerry’s wind surfing event? Does it bother u to pay more in taxes so the Romney’s can deduct dressage horses?
Maybe that is one of the deductions that Romney plans on getting rid of.
kindness
The Incredible Plastic Presidential Candidate.
Wonder Bread is more wholesome (and less white).
fleeting expletive
Remembering the McCain campaign where the press loved him so much because of the barbecues and tire swings and all, I wonder if Romney fetes the campaign press with alcohol, coffee, sodas and Red Bull. All of that would be contrary to Mormon faith. I wish someone would find out and let us know. It is fearful to contemplate how press coverage might depend on the laying on of goodies for the very, very deserving likes of Chuck Todd.
Yutsano
@WWStBreitbartD: Nothing in the full video (which I have seen) changes the fact that Willard acted like a clueless twit. Yet moar trollfail.
gogol's wife
@harlana:
Cringe!
khead
I nominate this cat for President. Maybe this one too.
Also, yes, folks from PA (and NJ….and northern MD) will get their hoagies from Wawa if they are drunk and it is late enough….
…but none of them would be as fucking amazed as Mitt when acquiring it. Sheesh.
Steeplejack
DVR Alert!
Krugman scheduled to be on The Colbert Report tonight.
Keith
@beltane: I would die of laughter if I heard Mitt say “Old Lady” in front of a bunch of bikers.
dedc79
It’s no coincidence that the Obama campaign has John Kerry playing Romney in debate prep
gene108
@schrodinger’s cat:
In some uncivilized parts of the country they call them “subs” or “submarine sandwiches”.
Also, too I was talking to some MBA classmates – most of whom grew up in the Philly area, with a couple from India (who I can not be surprised at) – but none of them knew what kudzu is!
Goodness, I somehow didn’t realize how isolated to the South our nation’s kudzu problem is.
Xecky Gilchrist
@harlana: Getoutatown! Next you’ll be telling me their servants don’t even make them dinner.
gogol's wife
I am just so profoundly, profoundly sad that this person has even the ghost of a chance of becoming president.
Mike Dixon
@MoeLarryAndJesus:
“Where do you get your Shmuffinz here, do you get them Sheetzes?”
BGinCHI
@shortstop: Plus he’s been wearing pleated slacks lately. WTF?
gene108
@Xecky Gilchrist:
Or better yet, RFID tech at factories and warehouses for inventory control. I bet he thought RFID only worked for EZ-PASS or whatever they call it in MA.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Warren Terra: Talk radio chatter he’s using to keep the mouth-breathers stoked, like hanging out with Trump, fawning over Nugent or titling his book “No apologies”, which is also a big part of his stump speech. I predict at least half the speakers at their convention will read teleprompter jokes from a teleprompter.
As to the post, I can almost sympathize, being kind of socially awkward myself. And I hate this shit. I wanted to stomp on people who talked about what kind of cheese Kerry got on his sandwich. I would almost be tempted to vote Republican if one of them promised to do away with crap like pardoning the turkeys and phone calls to locker rooms. The ‘7/11 cookies’ thing actually struck me as a window in the psyche of a major douchebag. That’s one of the reasons I don’t buy into the idea that Ann is such a nice lady. At least one of the Mittlets should be less of a knob than the father if that were true.
Hill Dweller
@WWStBreitbartD: After the media has given Willard completely unearned positive press, and covered up his political ineptitude for the last year, you still f’n complain about media bias?
gogol's wife
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
There is nothing on God’s green earth that I am more sure of than that Ann is not such a nice lady. Look at her face! In the picture in the NYTimes where she’s celebrating that her horse is going to the Olympics, she’s almost snarling!
schrodinger's cat
@gene108: Isn’t that some kind of a weed that grows in Georgia?
PurpleGirl
Did he never go to a Horn & Hardart automat cafe as a child? They had all their sandwiches and food items in these little boxes that you opened and took out the item. It was then refilled by a worker behind the wall(s) of little boxes. There were still a few automats in NYC into the late 1960s and early 1970s. They were fun to go to.
Dog is My CoPilot
I couldn’t see Bush as president either, but our country elected him for two terms.
gene108
@cathyx:
From what I’ve seen over the last 15 years of living near PA, that isn’t the case.
Maybe the closest thing I can think of to the cultural impact of Wawa in the area is something like Krispy Kreme in North Carolina. There’s just a bit of cultural identity wrapped up in the brand.
Also, too Canadians claim Ed Horton donuts are better than Krispy Kreme, which proves they are (a) crazy and (b) it’s about damn time we avenge ourselves over our loss in the War of 1812 (they burned the White House and we treat them like allies).
beltane
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ann does not strike me as being a nice lady, quite the opposite. She comes across as a typical mean, spoiled rich lady with no interests in life other than her own self-indulgent pleasures. It doesn’t appear that there is any such thing as “Mormon guilt” because no one in this family seems to feel even the slightest need to give back to society in any way.
Tonal Crow
@BGinCHI:
I want to see his vault-copy both-feet-stamped DNA-sampled notary-attested doctor-signed military-verified birth certificate. I am not convinced that he was ever born.
The Other Chuck
So do I use the “touch tone screen” to get my fucking health insurance then? Where on the “touch tone screen” is the right to unionize or have legal abortion?
This is just “argument by wow” — see Friedman, Thomas.
Hill Dweller
At the other end of the spectrum, check out the First Lady doing double-dutch this morning on TV. She radiates warmth and genuineness.
harlana
@gogol’s wife: the best part about that video is it’s only about a minute long. but i still think it’s the best moment of his candidacy. :)
David Koch
someone needs to ask Mittens whatz his favorite beer – just to see him squirm.
gene108
@schrodinger’s cat:
It’s not indiginous to here. It’s Japanese. Some genius thought it’d look good, so they planted it here.
No enemies here, so it’s the mack-daddy of invasive plant species in the Southeast.
If state and local governments didn’t spend money trimming back the Kudzu it’d overrun a lot of vegetation.
Google Image search for Kudzu
Steeplejack
@gene108:
QuikTrip in the Southeast (and some big cities in the Midwest) is the closest analogy I can think of. “Upscale” convenience store/gas station.
ETA: And, at least in the ones I’ve been to (around Atlanta), the workers are ferociously cheerful, in a good but slightly unsettling (because unexpected) way.
Svensker
Was it Chris Buckley who went into a McDonalds and asked for the “house white”?
And didn’t George Bush the First exclaim over supermarket scanners?
The elites, they are always with us. And yet not.
MikeJ
@Dog is My CoPilot: 5-4
gogol's wife
@PurpleGirl:
I stepped away from the computer and opened the NYTimes and found this:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/revisiting-the-era-of-automatic-dining/?ref=todayspaper
They’re doing an exhibition on Horn & Hardart at the NY Public Library. I only ever saw them on television and really, really, wanted to go to one, but didn’t go to New York until much later, when I guess they had disappeared. I don’t think it was ever the kind of place the Romneys would have frequented, though!
shortstop
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Do you think that simply because you want to be president, you should get to be president, whether or not other people agree? Do you further do nothing to educate yourself about what’s important to those people? No? Then tuck that sympathy in and tell it good night.
harlana
(patrician laughter)
i want one of you guys to teach me how to fly coach some time! that would be something!
(nervous laughter)
MR
Svensker
@gene108:
Ed Horton donuts?
Is that Tim Horton’s better looking brother? :)
Also, too, Timmie’s Maple Dip and Dutchie donuts? Nom nom nom!
cathyx
@gene108: When I lived in Pa, the Philly end, no one I knew would dream of buying their subs at Wawas. There were too many good delis around to waste buying one at Wawa.
gogol's wife
@Svensker:
Maybe he’s thinking of the immortal Ed Norton.
shortstop
@Steeplejack: BP does sandwiches and soups and so forth at a lot of its midwest locations. I’ve never actually eaten one, though.
Martin
Nobody tell him you can buy that same hoagie electronically using your SNAP card. We wouldn’t want him to segfault so early in the campaign.
Yutsano
@Svensker: Heh. Oops.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@gene108:
Really? Rutter’s, Turkey Hill, and High’s come to mind around my neck of the woods. Is WaWa is more than a convenience store with a deli counter like all these others?
cathyx
Next thing we’ll hear from Mitt is about this sauce called ketchup. Ever hear of it?
shortstop
harlana, you are cracking me up.
Linnaeus
@gene108:
It’s Tim Hortons, and yes, their doughnuts are better than Krispy Kreme. Coffee’s better too.
The Other Chuck
“This feels good, being back in Pennsylvania. You know, the sandwiches are the right length.”
(actually if he said exactly that, he could win points for being self-effacing. never. gonna. happen.)
Hill Dweller
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I was saying on an earlier thread that I don’t think Ann Romney is nice. Her ‘it’s our time’ comment and snide remarks about the Obama’s vacations were revealing, in my view. I know people that are more familiar with Willard’s earlier runs for office have said she was a liability.
It’s another example of the double-standard Michelle Obama faces. There is no way she could say anything remotely close to that about Laura Bush(not that she wanted to) without the entire country coming down on her.
Linda Featheringill
One of Mitt’s problems is that Obama has experienced so much in the US and in other cultures, and has rubbed elbows with so many different sorts of people, and he apparently has a memory like a bear trap, that he comes off as suave and sophisticate no matter where you put him.
He has probably destroyed the aw-shucks good-old-boy presidential charm gig.
khead
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Wawa > Highs
Martin
@David Koch: Reminded me of this:
We need to come up with a suitable test for Mittens.
Jim C
@Linnaeus: I don’t know about the coffee (didn’t have it), but I also agree with the Canadians about Tim Horton’s donuts. It’s a Canadian incursion I welcome.
shortstop
Mmmmm, donuts. I recognize them when I see them.
The Other Chuck
@Martin:
I have the test right here:
1. It’s your birthday. Someone gives you a calfskin wallet. How do you react?
2. You’ve got a little boy. He shows you his butterfly collection plus the killing jar. What do you do?
3. You’re watching television. Suddenly you realize there’s a wasp crawling on your arm.
4. You’re in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise, Mitt, it’s crawling toward you. You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back, Mitt. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that?
5. Describe in single words, only the good things that come into your mind about your mother.
Linnaeus
@Jim C:
When I go to Michigan to visit my family, I always make sure to go to Tim Hortons, which is easier to do now that there have been Tim Hortons in metro Detroit for several years.
Steeplejack
@shortstop:
I haven’t eaten anything at a BP in as long as I can remember–maybe never. The thing about QuikTrip and WaWa is that you could actually almost see yourself eating something from there in a pinch, e.g. at the tail end of a horrendous Harold and Kumar type evening when there’s no White Castle in sight.
And I do really like the “beverage bar” at QuikTrip. Lots of different drinks on tap, plus additives (vanilla, cherry juice, etc.) and really durable plastic cups and lids that you actually want to keep. And really good iced tea.
The Dangerman
Romney doesn’t care about Hoagies. He doesn’t care about WaWa’s. He just doesn’t care. He IS the least interested man in the world. Stay hungry (and poor), my friends.
/with apologies to Dos Equis
Martin
Unfortunately, California has shitty perforated strudel orbs. One thing I miss from NYC.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@khead:
Anything > High’s
Tonal Crow
“You press the little [pause] touch-tone keypad….”
He’s not only out-of-touch, he’s revelling in the idea that that “touch-tone keypad[s]” have taken peoples’ jobs.
Romney: working hard to replace you with a touch-tone keypad.
PurpleGirl
@gogol’s wife: Thanks for the link. I’ll have to go to the exhibit.
The first few science fiction conventions I went to included lunch and dinner at the automat because it was reasonable to eat there. (And the little bronze boxes were sort-of sf futuristic.)
Steeplejack
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Even as a merely regional chain, WaWa has way more reach and penetration than any of those outfits. I think he meant no one has tried to roll out a similar concept on a bigger-than-local basis.
shortstop
@Steeplejack: Okay, but I’ve been to a lot of QuikTrips and haven’t wanted to eat any solid food there. Possibly the fact that I don’t drink explains this. Also, their drink bar (additives and all) is just like that of most BPs and 7-11s I know. I believe y’all when you say WaWa’s is better, but I’m just not hearing the difference for myself. Next time I hit the Philly area, which shouldn’t be too long, I’ll check it out!
jl
@khead:
” Also, yes, folks from PA (and NJ….and northern MD) will get their hoagies from Wawa if they are drunk and it is late enough… ”
Well, OK I saw two commenters say that WaWa computer keyboard hoagies are for late night drunks.
So, Mitt may have a point. A totaled out drunk can stagger into the store fall on the computer key pad, and if he can stagger a little further on there will be some kind of hoagie waiting for him.
Now, that dude could never give an order to anybody, most of the time, until he sobers up.
That is real innovative corporate problem solving for a real problem for late night totaled out drunks.
I wish there had been some WaWas around when I was younger.
Edit: and if Mittle White Lie wins, I think WaWa business will be way up, for reasons I would rather not think about.
bemused senior
@gogol’s wife: My husband is from Manhattan, and always reminisces about Horn and Hardart from when he was a little boy. He loved their mac and cheese, and he loved the robotic aspect of buying it.
Arm The Homeless
@schrodinger’s cat: The city I live in until recently had a herd of goats which were moved from property to property taking care of kudzu. It’s one of the biggest threats to our trees.
harlana
@shortstop: most socially awkward people do not run for president. Mitt, however, is a rare exception. most socially awkward people who happen to have Mitt’s means and who, i might add, love money as much as he does, and really really hate the press and are confounded by the common peoples, don’t run for president. Mitt doesn’t have to do a damn thing but lift his little pinkie for the rest of his life and life like a fucking king and so can the rest of his family.
So what is it?
I’ve seen what power authoritarian religion can hold over men and their entire families. the family unit is sacred and it is entitled above all others outside that sphere.
Redshift
@The Other Chuck: Yeah, that’s it!
Who wants to volunteer to administer the test? And isn’t he already way over his time limit?
gogol's wife
@harlana:
Yeah, I’m beginning to believe this explanation. It’s his Mormon destiny.
Redshift
Ya know, I find the idea that anyone would actually post with a ‘nym based on “Saint Breitbart” almost as hilarious as the Romney clip.
ETA: And just like a brietbartlet to yell “edited” about a clip that is just a single sequence, and insist that the lack of context proves bias even though the context does not help at all. The level of projection by these twerps…
Mike in NC
Clueless Mitt Rmoney makes Prince Philip look like a Regular Joe.
Yutsano
@gogol’s wife: Daddy issues. Also. Too.
Tonal Crow
I do hope Obama provides lavish accommodations for the reporters following him around, including Filet Mignon sandwiches, as much alcohol as they can drink, and plenty of high-grade coffee to sober up when it’s time to go home.
slightly-peeved
@Hill Dweller:
Could Romney be referring to Obama’s vacations to Hawaii? A big chunk of his party seem to think it’s a foreign country.
@Linda Featheringill:
I’d say one essential ability of a community organiser would be to go into a room of people predisposed to distrust you and make them feel that you’re genuinely interested in them. I think Obama is not only a natural at this sort of thing, he’s had a lot of practice with some very tough crowds.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@gogol’s wife: a draft-dodging, tea-totalling Harvard MBA with daddy issues and a messiah complex? What could possibly go wrong!
Redshift
@gogol’s wife: I don’t think that’s necessary. Shrub had no interest in doing any part of the job of president, he just wanted to be president and thought he deserved it. Romney is no different in that respect.
batgirl
According to James Fallows, he as comparing the so-called difficulty of changing your address with the postal service (a doctor telling him he had to fill out a 33 page form multiple times to get his mail delivered elsewhere) to WaWa’s. So once again, it’s either Mitt lying or an idiotic doctor because changing your address with the postal services is one of the easiest things to do. You can do it online or with their form which looks like a postcard.
Steeplejack
@shortstop:
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten any food from QuikTrip either. Was mainly just making the point that, like WaWa, it has a more upscale vibe than the other chains. Please don’t conduct any dangerous experiments on my account!
Next time you hit Philly, you should get a cheesesteak at Nick’s Roast Beef. Better than Pat’s or Geno’s.
harlana
http://www.saffo.com/02009/03/17/farewell-to-the-touch-tone-pad-on-your-phone/
Steve in DC
@harlana:
Nixon, LBJ, Bush the sr, Ford… I mean, shit tons of socially inept people run for president… we just normally remember the ones with charisma.
Turn Biden loose in PA, or hell Clinton. People that like fast food, cheap beer, and doritos, watch the rampage.
Though for all the howling about windsurfing, arugala, and yuenling (I’ll let chili incident fly that was hilarious) Mittens is just out there. Touch order food is even a thing at high end places where it’s built into the table or comes around on ipads.
I’m waiting till Mitt has to watch an actual BBQ down south in an old oil drum, that should be a riot.
MGB
@Linnaeus:
Never understood why folks hate on some Tim Horton’s. Food’s not so bad, for a large chain coffee place.
If I remember, you were also raised on a certain large city on the border with greater Canuckistan, where Tim Horton’s actually exists.
shortstop
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: And he STILL manages to be boring! How the fuck does he do it?!
MikeJ
@Hill Dweller:
Tory PM David Cameron left his kid in a pub. Left. Got in his car and drove away.
What would be said if Obama left one of his kids in a bar?
PurpleGirl
@batgirl: While the change of address form is just a postcard, it’s so much more fun to claim it’s a 33-page form and that the incompetents in the Postal Service made you fill it out multiple times.
Hill Dweller
The twitter machine is telling me Willard was in Davenport, but mistakenly called it Des Moines.
slightly-peeved
@Mike in NC:
to be fair to him and Ma’am, the British royal family (Phil’s racist jokes aside) have the local meet-and-greet down to a fine art. Romney does it when he’s running for office, but for them, it’s almost their entire job. I don’t think Romney is bad at it because of his privileged upbringing, it’s because he really does not give a shit about them.
Steve in DC
@MikeJ:
To be fair you’re talking about the UK there. Alcohol doesn’t get the same reaction as it does here. Also a pub is not a bar, different type of deal.
harlana
@Steve in DC: but did any of them look like they were in that much pain? and if you had his money, would you go through all that agony, because he’s just hating every minute of this. and the damn job only pays $400,000! that’s not enough to board Rifalca for a week.
and LBJ was not socially inept by Texas standards!
jl
@batgirl:
” changing your address with the postal services is one of the easiest things to do. You can do it online or with their form which looks like a postcard. ”
ONLINE?
Post office must of stolen the idea from WaWas.
I wonder if this doctor was talking about paperwork involved in changing his business address for purposes of reimbursements, or.. something?
Anyone know what this doctor was talking about? Couldn’t be the post office.
but, with these folks, you never know.
shortstop
@Hill Dweller: I’ll cut him some slack for that. They bounce quickly from town to town, and there’s probably never been a candidate who didn’t forget where he was at least once. However, the rest of them could recognize donuts, calmly operate touchscreens and refrain from randomly singing “Who Let the Dogs Out?” to black children.
beltane
@batgirl: Mitt own something like 33 houses so he has a lot of different addresses to deal with. This is not the fault of the Postal Service however.
Eric
The other chuck. That was brilliant.
Joel
That’s why he’s Shitt Romney. God, if Obama doesn’t destroy this fucking moron, I don’t know what to say.
Evolving Deep Southerner
@schrodinger’s cat: Kudzu are people, my friend.
Josie
You all are really missing out with your WaWas and such. If you lived within miles of the Mexican border, you could go to a Stripes and get homemade taquitos with your choice of eggs, bacon, sausage, chorizo, refried beans, etc. We are behind the times, unfortunately – no touch tone key pads here.
shortstop
@harlana: LBJ was a weird combo of socially inept and socially gifted. He could bellow and bully and show his gallbladder scar and make aides watch him poop, but he could also cajole senators and staff into doing almost anything he wanted them to. They just had to have thick skins. Hard to imagine Romney engendering the kind of loyalty LBJ wrung out of people.
khead
@jl:
Amazingly, my wife’s fat ass aunt from south NJ managed to order many a hoagie from Wawa after 12 Midnite without being amazed as Mitt by the ordering process along the way.
Now, I have to admit that I was pretty much astonished as anyone else that the nice lady could actually eat a hoagie at 2:00 AM, but I really don’t consider her getting her order fulfilled by a computer to be some kind of monument to capitalism either.
I mean, it’s a fucking hoagie. From a gas station.
Still better than High’s or 7/11 tho.
Jus’ sayin’.
KG
@WWStBreitbartD: according to your link, Romney wants more competition in government, please explain to me how that happens? Private Army to compete with the federal government’s? Maybe a private police force to compete with the FBI? I don’t possibly see what could go wrong?
And here’s what I don’t understand… people bitch about the inefficiency of government (and I get that, nothing worse than being stuck in line at the post office or DMV or ER waiting room), but how exactly is “making government smaller” (translation: laying employees off, and having fewer workers) supposed to make government more efficient? As a lawyer, I can tell you this: fewer judges and fewer law clerks and support staff has not made the courts more efficient, it has made them even less efficient because the workload has increased.
muddy
@PurpleGirl: Horn and Hardart! My dad took me in Philadelphia when I was a kid, it was so cool! He told me this gut-wrenching tale of how when he was young he came for his favorite, lemon meringue pie, and was robotically ripped off. As he was taking his plate out, the door closed too quickly and scraped the meringue off. And he didn’t have another nickel. Remembered this all his life, no further meringue could make up for it.
wiscomom
My take is that Mitt is in control of his own messaging and that is why it is so bad. He really isn’t being “handled” by any one so no one is helping him come up with authentic sounding interactions.
He is also forced into these “common man” exchanges because he insists that he NOT use a teleprompter. So this is all the prelude to his spontaneous stump speech (kind of like his “economic address” he pushed up to be sure it came before Obama’s last week). Awful is okay if it’s not a “speech” in this world.
He has to sound “off the cuff”, unlike Obama, you see…as a result he comes off as a stilted, entitled snob. Or robot.
And Ann Romney will not be the perfect antidote to Mitt’s awkwardness. She’s likely as bad if not worse than he is.
Odie Hugh Manatee
We might be giving Romney too much credit in calling him a robot. At the end of his show tonight, Tweety said of Romney:
“… he’s not a candidate, he’s a speaker system.”
Good one Tweety.
SiubhanDuinne
@Hill Dweller:
I thought she said it in the Whitey Tape.
Baud
@KG:
I don’t know. If Romney is president, I would welcome the opportunity to shop for a new government in the open market.
lacp
@Tonal Crow: You wouldn’t settle for a copy of the manufacturer’s warranty?
lacp
@Steeplejack: Best cheesesteak I’ve had was at Mama’s in Bala Cynwyd. Don’t leave out the roast pork sammiches at John’s and Tony Luke’s, either.
salvage
The video was selectively edited to make it look like he was excited about push button sandwiches rather than the stupid idea he was actually going on about. “Government doesn’t have competition so it’s bad!” Jesus Christ.
I’m not sure why the OP still see’s it any other way.
If Fox had pulled this sort of thing with Obama you’d be rightfully freaking out, the story here is that they cut the speech to make Romeny look retarded so they could fill a few minutes of air time with an essentially manufactured story.
The irony being Romeny was being retarded but the “Wawa” thing was easier to rip on so fuck it, policy is boring!
harlana
@shortstop: he wasn’t exactly a patrician but he could be very persuasive. the only thing persuasive about Mitt is his money.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
man someone needs to teach mitt how to order a grindr.
lacp
@Steve in DC: Doesn’t hurt that Biden and Hillary are both from PA originally. Of course, so are Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, and Newt Gingrich.
jl
@salvage:
That is true, I read a more complete story earlier.
Corporate media loves stereotypes. Maybe they thought the needed an out of touch rich Republican story to fill time, and maybe for a little balance for their next Obama stereotype piece.
The granpappy Bush supermerket scanner classic started a minor media genre. Whenever Mitt wanders too close to some photomat, or ipone tap pad, or newfangled vacuum coffee joint machine, or whatever, the media will come stampeding for an ‘up close and personal’ out of touch moment.
Edit: and you are probably right that the media wanted to avoid substance at all costs, since that is dangerous territory. Some talking head might have to make some kind of reality based comment, which is communist and icky.
Villago Delenda Est
@Hill Dweller:
The horse race narrative must be maintained AT ANY COST.
Because, after all, they’ve shot their wad on credibility long ago, so they no longer have to worry about long term consequences for being gutter level street walkers.
Villago Delenda Est
@gogol’s wife:
This clip definitely applies here.
SiubhanDuinne
@lacp:
What’s Hillary’s PA connection?
Gypsy howell
Honestly, the whole “common man/ local color” aspect of these campaigns is insultingly stupid. I know Mitt Romney’s never set foot in a Wawa before- why would he? And why would i expect him to be familiar with one? But if you ARE going to attempt the local color schtick, at least don’t repeat a million times something that will grate on the ears of all the locals. It’s not Wawas, Mitt, it’s Wawa. We go to Wawa. We order sandwiches at the Wawa. We pick up a couple things at the Wawa.
And yes, I’ve eaten lots of Wawa hoagies over the years. For fast super convenient food, a hoagie from Wawa sure beats anything McDs or Burger King or Chik Fil A or any of the rest of them can pump out. It’s actual food. They always have fun music playing in the store, clean nice restrooms, great selection of convenience foods (cut up veggies and dip, salads, cheese and fresh fruit snacks) the new superWas have cheaper gas, and they have no-fee ATMs. Yeah, I loves me some Wa.
Wawa trivia -They began as our local dairy (I used to work across from their original dairy, cows and everytihing) and they had the contract for milk for our elementary school way back when. In first grade, I learned from their 5 cent milk cartons that Wawa means “wild goose” in “Indian Talk”
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Never mind. Just remembered, and confirmed on Wikipedia, that her grandparents lived there and she spent vacations with them.
lacp
@SiubhanDuinne: My error – her father was from Scranton. I thought she was born there.
Mr Stagger Lee
Mitt should have said, “I want my tasty cakes!!!” while wearing a Flyers jersey. Of course that would piss off the Bruin fans. Mitt at Sturgis, I want him with a devil’s tattoos and Ann flashing her….on a back of Harley.
LongHairedWeirdo
@phantomist:
He’d be better getting ’em from Lee’s. Lee’s will even wrap them up for travel!
I will give ’em this much, though: the Wawa near my mom’s house had (I assume still have) Amoroso’s rolls (or a good substitute) and they don’t make a *bad* hoagie. A bit, you know, a bit like you’d *expect* from a Wawa rather than your favorite corner deli/pizza shop, but not *bad*. And the touchscreen does give you the option for sweet peppers on the side, which means you can take one to the airport on your plane ride home. (If you have ’em in the sandwich, they’ll make the bread soggy.)
(I had to glare at TSA and explain that I was flying 2500 miles and would be away from Philly for another year – at which point they decided they’d have to pass all my food through security, *or* call out the riot squad – and the riot squad might have sympathized with *me* when they learned the story. So they let ’em through.)
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Rachel asking why the Dems aren’t beating the GOP like a drum for their behavior (and the MSM for ignoring it). Gotta love it.
lacp
@LongHairedWeirdo: Lee’s makes great hoagies, but they closed their Center City location so I have to go to West Philly. Primo’s is really good, too.
Scott Alloway
@MattR: Yo. It’s The Wah, as my hipster doofus co-workers would call it. They’re 20 and I’m 62, but it is by far and away the best mini-mart I have experienced)from living in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Hoagies there? NFW. Dalessandros, my friend. But 31 years here have ingrained a fondness for The Wah. And, yes, there is a Wawa, PA, in the Commonwealth. Google it. Drove through it once.Believe Wawa Farms started there.
lacp
@Scott Alloway: Their corporate HQ is in Wawa (they’re a big funder of the nonprofit where I work).
grandpa john
@gene108: Kudzu was introduced into the south to help control soil erosion on farms . Nobody seemed to realize that not only did it do the job of growing over and covering gullies but it would also grow over anything else in its path including trees and buildings.and at a rapid rate. One does not stand still for long around Kudzu or it will grow over you as well.
Jebediah
@The Dangerman:
That’s funny! Also because he is simultaneously the least interesting and least interested man…
magurakurin
@cathyx: More importantly, not everyone in Pennsylvania eats hoagies. That’s a Philly/Southeastern PA term for what would be a sub in New York. South Jersey shops tend to use either or/both names. And who has the best hoagies is as touchy a subject as there can be in the Philadelphia area, but you can get a decent sandwich at Wawa.
Don’t know if it is really true or not, but my friend’s Dad who was from Northeast Philly always told us that the name hoagie came from the workers on Hog Island who used to carry a sandwich their wives would make for them rolled up in the back of their shirts. The oil and vinegar would stain the shirts and since the guys who worked on the ships at Hog Island were called “hoagies” that’s how the sandwich got its name. Could be total bullshit, I never did google it.
Cheese steak: Delasandro’s on Henry Avenue
Hoagie: Pudgie’s in Blue Bell or the Whitehouse in Atlantic City
But there are heaps and heaps of good places. And while Wawa is just an ordinary sandwich it would be “the Best of” in pretty much any city west of the Appalachians and south of the Mason Dixon line. Sorry, but he East Coast simply rules for stuff like subs, steaks, and pizza.
And Subway, that’s the fucking dog’s dinner.
Cacti
Ask Mitt what his favorite beer is.
What, no beer, Mitt? Why not?
Because a 19th century con-artist who practiced polygamy with 14 year old girls said you shouldn’t?
Oh, that’s a good reason.
Steeplejack
@lacp:
Will put them on the to-do list.
David in NY
@Dog is My CoPilot: And I distinctly remember saying about Bush I, “That man will never be President.” Well, in that case I was half right.
David in NY
@Dog is My CoPilot: And I distinctly remember saying about Bush I, “That man will never be President.” Well, in that case I was half right.
Mnemosyne
@magurakurin:
Dude. You need to get out west of the Appalachians once in a while if you think any East Coast steak or pizza is better than the worst one you can get in Chicago.
ETA: Subs, meh. We’ll kick your ass in hot dog.
freelancer
171 comments and NO ONE has mentioned Bloodhound Gang’s Pennsylvania?
Juicers, you are slacking.
magurakurin
@Mnemosyne: Okay, I’ll give you that, Chicago Pizza, in it’s own genre, is awesome but it isn’t “pizza.”* And hot dogs, okay, maybe you win hot dogs, the whole midwest sausage/brat thing going on and all. But pretzels, don’t even go there, my friend, don’t even go there. No where, but no where beats a Philadelphia soft pretzel.
*disclaimer: this is only for fun. I’ve been to Napoli, and I’ve eaten pizza on the Via de Tribunali. OH MY GOD, that is the shit. And that is, afterall, the birthplace of pizza. And it fuckin rocks the socks off of anything else, anywhere in the world in the pizza contest.
But cheese steaks? Chicago better than Philly? People have been killed for far, far less than that.
bvac
I read that sooper mexican post several times over, and a few other posts as well. Can someone tell me if that site is a parody of or legit winger?
DougJ
@salvage:
I linked to the rebuttal.
Mnemosyne
@magurakurin:
We don’t have cheese steaks in Chicago, because we know that cheese doesn’t belong on a steak. I can’t imagine anything worse than slathering some kind of goopy processed cheese product on top of a nice, wet Italian beef.
Chicago may have enough Germans and Poles to still give Philly a run for its money on pretzels, but I will grant that it’s not a big soft pretzel city.
magurakurin
@Mnemosyne: If you think that a Philly Cheese Steak has “processed cheese” on it, well, I pity you, because you have never enjoyed a real cheese steak. Fresh Italian provolone and/or mozzarella my friend. Don’t be fooled by the images you see of Pat’s Steaks. That’s some weird South Philly obsession. Seek and ye shall find (hint, look on Henry Avenue…)
That sandwich in the link looks outstanding by the way. Wish I could eat one now…but it’s rice and fish for me, rice and fish for me…morning, noon and night.
Hugely
@The Other Chuck: so full of win: +1
Hugely
oh and Lee’s (or Leo’s in State College lol) have the best hoagies. Wawa hoagies are ok.
mclaren
Reagan was the ultimate out-of-touch weirdo. And he became one of the most beloved presidents of modern times.
The first time I saw a Reagan speech on TV I cracked up because it was so obvious that he was mouthing a bunch of words with total disregard to their meaning. He was playing a part. It was as patently phony as a 3-dollar bill.
Yet everyone lapped it up and begged for more.
So I wouldn’t count on phoniness disqualifying Romney from the presidency.
mclaren
@magurakurin:
Dude…Mnemosyne is from California. She has no idea what a Philly Cheese Steak sandwich is, anymore than she knows what real pizza is. Only those of us on from the East Coast know that stuff.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne:
Recipe win!
freelancer
@Yutsano:
Made me laugh too.
How’s the recovery going?
Don’t call it a comeback…
Yutsano
@freelancer: A week and a day left. I have quite a bit more ability and what pain I do have is controllable by naproxen sodium. I hopefully get cleared to drive Friday and I think I will be. After that is PT. Lots and lots of PT.
Ann
As an eastern Pennsylvanian: it’s Wawa, not Wawa’s (Mitt mangled the name). Its slogan in years past was: “Mama, I want Wawa.” A classic! The name started in 1902 when the company moved to Delaware County, PA — it comes from a local Native American word for a Canadian goose in flight (per the Wawa website). It’s a mid-Atlantic 7/11 competitor. And it’s not where natives go for their hoagies!
Lyrebird
@magurakurin: Well if you venture just a teeny bit west into the part of Appalachia known as the Alleghenies, you could get your better-than-Subway but still fast food at Sheetz, and I think Sheetz has the better touch-screen ordering thingamajig!
I’d never ordered food in a Sheetz until I ended up way deep in Marcellus Shale country (sigh), and I was amazed at the salad options…
Wouldn’t judge Rmoney so harshly if he didn’t pander so hard and so patronizingly. If he still mixed things up with town names and store names (it’s just Wawa, no -‘s) but showed some genuine interest in the *people* there listening to him, it would be a different story.
freelancer
@Yutsano:
Aleve is a medical miracle. Don’t overdo it though. Your GI will thank you. But so glad things are going according to plan.
Mnemosyne
@mclaren:
I live in California, but I’m from Chicago, and I know that any pizza you have to fold in half to eat is shite and any beef sandwich that requires cheese doesn’t have enough oregano.
magurakurin
@Mnemosyne: they don’t “require” cheese. You can order a plain steak, but a plain steak with sauce and hot peppers is a better choice. And if you order one to go and wait 20 minutes to eat it the sauce soaks up into the roll…it’s dreamy.
And I’ve only visited Chicago twice, but everything I ate there was awesome, I will admit. No way I could hack those winters though.
And California food, meh, if the menu isn’t written in Spanish, fuggedaboutit.
Gypsy howell
@Ann:
Natives don’t eat hoagies from Wawa? Sure we do. You stop at Wawa for a hoagie the same way you might stop in at a McDonalds for a hamburger. Except the Wawa hoagie is an actual edible sandwich, made with actual edible food and made to order.
salvage
@DougJ:
Yes but you wondered if it was “parody” so I got the impression that you didn’t find it compelling what’s worse is you completely skipped over the fact that the tape was deliberately edited to changed the substance of Romeny’s remarks.
This is the EXACT thing that James O’Keefe does!
Where is the outrage for that? Reserved for when they do a stitch up on the guy you’re going to vote for I imagine.
The media laughs and laughs because they know that when they pull this shit they’ll only earn the ire of about half the population, the other half will cheer or at the very least remain mum. So they can bounce back and forth and get away with it making their coin.
At least FoxNews has a consistency and from that a species of scruples if not loyalty.
Ksmiami
Dudes there is a wawa at Princeton take that for elitism…
Ruckus
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Problem is they left out the error handling routines. Along with many other subroutines. Empathy, Anti-pomposity just to name a couple.
Xenos
@bvac: The sooper mexican site is one of these cases where the allegedly independent Memeorandum folks drag up some weird pre-rebunked take on a non-scandal as a way of either injecting the wingnuttiest take on some distraction or another, or just trolling for hit counts.