Campaign Trail

Occasional morsels from Campaign 2000

Cooking the results

Who needs margins of error and representative sampling? Just bake some cookies, and you’ve got yourself a poll.

A Miami firm has created America Chews, iced shortbread cookies stamped with the likenesses of presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush. At last count, Bush was beating Gore by more than 2 to 1, with almost 22,000 cookies sold bearing his face.

“People are going to eat, and vote for, something they find appealing,” self-proclaimed political analyst Alan Nelson said in a news release from America Chews. “This is true on many levels, even the subconscious. You eat what looks appealing, and whose taste is perceived as such. Whether it’s a candidate or a cookie, aesthetic appeal and trustworthiness of ingredients are paramount.”

And for those who prefer another candidate, or just enjoy an apolitical cookie, None of the Above is for sale, also at $16.95 per dozen.

Gotta dance

Al Gore, who once regaled audiences with his wooden version of the Macarena, the formerly popular and lively Latin line dance, has faced reality: He’s not a particularly skilled dancer and would like to get better at it.

During an interview in Philadelphia last week, the Democratic presidential nominee-in-waiting paused when a reporter for a local television station asked what qualities he would change if possible.

The response: “I think I would like to be a better dancer.”

The vice president often used the Macarena, which became a trademark of the 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, to poke fun at his reputation for having a stiff personality.

He often asked audiences for silence so he could do the “Al Gore version of the Macarena.” Then he would stand rigid for several seconds before asking, “Want to see me do it again?”

When the Philadelphia interviewer reminded Gore that his wife, Tipper, thinks he’s a good dancer, he chuckled.

Ranch addressing

The first news conference on Texas Gov. George W. Bush’s 1,600-acre ranch in a remote corner of Texas prairie country was a decidedly roughhewn affair.

First, Bush pulled up in his six-wheel-drive tractor, his wife, Laura, in the front seat and his dog, Spot, in the back. When a reporter asked Bush who his companion was, he immediately introduced the dog. Laura, climbing out, smiled gamely and said, “And I’m Mrs. Bush.”

Then there were the idle questions from reporters to the man who takes care of the Bush ranch. When one reporter asked him if he was the caretaker, he growled, saying the term was too sissy. “Foreman” was the preferred term.

Primitive press

As Vice President Gore viewed a “virtual tour of space” at New York City’s Natural History Museum last week, a skeleton crew of reporters following the candidate on a “family day” wandered over to the Native American exhibit at the closed museum.

As a Gore aide guided the press pool back to the waiting motorcade, he paused at a display of an early Indian whaling village.

“A press filing center for the Reagan press pool,” he joked. “Note the primitive filing capabilities and the partially thatched roof.”

Quote file

“Aw thanks, we all have one.”

--George W. Bush, after supporters wished him a happy 54th birthday on Thursday.

Compiled by Massie Ritsch from Times staff and wire reports