Fueling a frustration

News tidbits can often provide a truer account of the day’s issues than full-blown stories. So it was with three nuggets of recent days. All three dealt with restaurants and politics, but that’s about the extent of the connection—until you consider what might connect the dots.

The first point is a paragraph in a Jan. 1 New York Times story about the efforts of groups with a political agenda to influence the presidential campaign in not-so-subtle yet completely legal ways. In what could be called soft lobbying, the organizations fund their own advertising campaigns for a favored candidate, a practice protected by the courts’ current interpretation of free-speech rights. For instance, the Service Employees International Union, a new-age group hoping to organize the restaurant business, spent more than $1.5 million to run radio spots in Iowa for John Edwards, a candidate who boasts that he refuses contributions from political action committees.

The second development was a page-one story in this morning’s Times about the unfairness of Iowa’s quirky caucus system. Because the archaic set-up leaves no room for the equivalent of an absentee ballot, you have to attend one of the evening caucuses to influence the statewide results. Yet how many restaurants are going to let their staff run off for a political forum during the dinner rush? The story cited several specific examples of foodservice employees being thwarted in their desires to participate. Presumably the same timing problems keep restaurant owners and operators out of the caucuses as well. The system clearly seems to discriminate against places with a vibrant dinner business.

And the last tidbit of the three: A restaurateur in Edmond, Okla., is so frustrated with the political process in his home town that he’s refusing to serve certain officials, as he proudly declares in a sign posted out front, the Associated Press reported today. The two members of the Edmond Planning Commission, along with the board’s attorney, are cited by name as being unwelcome at Falcone’s Pizzeria and Deli. Actually, the language is a little stronger than that: The trio is instructed to stay off the property, according to the report.

The three reportedly led opposition to the red, green and white awning that proprietor Danny Falcone wanted to erect above his new restaurant to trumpet its Italian orientation. The Planning Commission reportedly refused to permit the awning, and the city council apparently followed its lead.

Restaurateurs often voice frustration with the political process, which many describe as an alien world where common sense seems to be suspended. With an adversarial union spending $1.5 million in just one state to push a candidate, despite lobbying limits and the beneficiary’s declaration he’d refuse tainted financing, and the system in that very state working against restaurateurs, is it any wonder the industry may feel a little desperate?

Beltway bets

It was like popping into an airport bar to catch the playoffs and finding a stranded Joe Buck and Tim McCarver perched on stools, offering their play-by-play to a select crowd that happily included you. In the dullest of years, attending the National Restaurant Association’s Public Affairs Conference makes you feel like a Washington insider. Catching the annual political download at a time like the present, when the presidential race is fuzzier than Phil Spector’s hair, was akin to getting a D.C. zip code. Elsewhere in the nation, pundits may still be wrangling over which candidates will get the nominations of their respective parties. But everyone inside the Beltway seems to have a solid hold on who the final contestants will be. And the wonks gladly shared that information with restaurateurs attending last week’s conference.

Almost certain to top the Democratic ticket, presenters agreed, is Hillary—though Mike McCurry, a former press secretary for her husband, added a major asterisk. If her performance in the early bell weather primaries suggests she can’t win the general election, the party faithful will likely abandon her for more of a centrist candidate like John Edwards. Why put money and party machinery behind such a polarizing force?

For that reason, Clinton’s chances of returning to the White House were portrayed as unlikely.

Likely to face her in the general election, McCurry and successor Ari Fleischer both noted, will either be Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson. In further analyzing the situation, the former presidential spokesmen noted that Thompson is the Great Unknown, with the mien and outsider credentials of the Great Communicator, Ronald Reagan. But, as Fleischer said, the question is, “is there any there there?” Is Thompson an actor playing a role, or a genuinely wise, principled conservative of impeccable integrity?

Romney was likened to the Energizer Bunny, the battery-charged, in-the-pink phenom who just keeps going and going and going. They noted that he also has solid business experience, having founded the private-equity behemoth Bain Capital. Yet nothing was said of his political stance, perhaps because it’s changed like the seasons since he caught the attention of Massachusetts voters in his run for governor. Other pundits have noted that the voting public of that state hardly match the political composition of the national populace.

And that left Giuliani, about whom they said virtually nothing positive or negative. Which, judging from some of the other political handicapping that was offered aloud during the conference, is the modern-day equivalent of having FDR’s oratorical skills, JFK’s money, and OTB’s designation as a favorite.