Suzanne Smalley files onscene with McCain in Pennsylvania:
When John McCain descended on a Bethlehem, Penn.
grocery store late yesterday afternoon, the unscheduled campaign stop, meant
to highlight McCain's concern over skyrocketing food prices, instead
quickly became a theater for the absurd. First, a cameraman knocked over several glass jars of Mott's applesauce,
which rolled near McCain's feet as he posed for a bevy of cameras while
strolling the grocery aisles. Then, the senator's hastily assembled
press conference, held in front of a perishable food case labeled
"Dairy Delights," was interrupted by the scream of the store's P.A.
system announcing a staffer had a phone call. Finally, there was the
fact that Renee Gould, the young mother McCain had an extended chat
with about the high price of tomatoes and milk, was not a random
shopper, but an area resident funneled to the campaign by the local
Republican Party. Gould's admission (a reporter cornered her and asked
how she came to be there) was ultimately not all that surprising. Even
with the amusing mishaps, the entire event came off as canned, and
McCain—whose discomfort with the phoniness required by politics has
always been evident—spent most of his time shifting uncomfortably.
Still, McCain did what he could to stick
to his message, reading from a note card in his hand as he told
reporters gathered for the dairy aisle press conference that, "Among
other challenges that American families face: The price of a gallon of
milk just went over $4 a gallon." McCain, who has tried to focus more
on domestic issues recently, also lamented that high oil prices are
trickling down to other sectors of the economy and driving up the cost
of food. But the senator's effort to set a tone for the press
conference was ignored by members of the press, who were not interested
in discussing food prices. Instead, reporters hammered McCain on recent
foreign policy gaffes; his feelings about the intense attention being
paid to Barack Obama's foreign trip; policy toward Israel; and his vice
presidential search. (When pressed on the last point, McCain allowed
that top contenders Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and Louisiana
Governor Bobby Jindal, are "the future of the Republican party, the
next generation of leadership").
After the press conference, McCain made his way back
to the front of the store, where Gould was unloading her groceries with
the help of her husband and two young daughters. The senator stood
awkwardly next to her and again tried to make stilted small talk about
the high price of food. Gould coyly asked, "You're going to be my
bagger?" McCain didn't, in fact, bag and seemed to be searching for
conversation topics, even as he looked into a field of cameras. Gould's
bill came to $105, which she noted is more than she used to pay.
McCain was a hit with the crowd, but the stampeding
media was not. Most in the crowd seemed to take the side of the stern
campaign staffers demanding reporters stay at least six feet from the
senator. "They're rude," one woman could be heard saying about the
reporters, who were camped out with boom mikes and note pads fighting
for prime real estate with a view of McCain. Other shoppers were merely
dumbfounded to show up for groceries mid-afternoon and find a
presidential candidate on the stump with a full entourage of cameras.
"It's kind of weird with all this media here," said Amber Huff, 23,
looking around in a daze. But Huff had a camera of her own and
documented the moment by taking a photo of McCain with her hot pink
cell phone. Shoppers in Kalamazoo, Toledo and Reno take note—campaign
staffers say they plan to start making many more such stops in the near
future.
