How a Plate of Tamales May Have Crushed Gerald Ford’s 1976 Presidential Campaign
Food on the campaign trail is a minefield for political candidates who have to figure out how to seem relatable enough to try out the local chow while avoiding an embarrassing eating photo. And though not everyone can dive headfirst into a smorgasbord everyday like campaign eating legend John Kasich, politicians can do their best to not pull a Gerald Ford, who, according to former Arkansas Governor and Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, may have lost the presidential election in ’76 because he didn’t know how to eat a tamale.
Gerald Ford was running for a second term in 1976 against Jimmy Carter after attaining America’s highest office in the wake of Richard Nixon’s resignation. At a campaign stop in San Antonio, Texas to visit the A… Continue Reading (2 minute read)
How about the Australian Prime Minister biting in an onion.
He was also quite a klutz, seen on camera numerous times knocking things over and tripping on things, not to mention his presidency only happened because Nixon resigned.
Guess we dropped our standards for what is and isn’t presidential a bit, huh?
I was handing out take home meals for school kids during the pandemic this year. After complaints after the first round of tamales, we had to include warnings with tamale meals that they needed to be unwrapped to be eaten. Granted it’s Boston, but still…
In the UK we had Ed Miliband eat a bacon sandwich slightly strangely in 2014 and it set off a chain of events so mind blowingly insane that 6 years later, Boris Johnson is our prime minister and we’ve left the European Union accepting a deal so monumentally bad for the country it blows the mind.
A bacon sandwich.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ed-miliband-bacon-sandwich_n_5bbe27b0e4b01470d0580898
You eat the burrito wrapper! This is confusing!
Ford had Nixons shadow. He also never won a Presidential election.
Le digo “Gracias” a /u/indeedlydoodly por haber escrito “tamal” en el título.
I too once bit into the corn of the first tamale handed to me. I was a 22 year old white boy from Minnesota living in Los Angeles. Some friends gifted me tamales after fixing their computer and I just chomped into that mofo. I have since learned how delicious they are
They should have helpped him. Some people just don’t know yet.
Always, help a brother out
A similar misstep derailed John Kerry in Philadelphia, PA.
He ordered a cheesesteak with swiss cheese, which is simply not ever done. Philadelphians collectively hurled, and it damaged his campaign.
[https://www.phillymag.com/foobooz/2018/09/22/john-kerry-cheesesteak-philadelphia/](https://www.phillymag.com/foobooz/2018/09/22/john-kerry-cheesesteak-philadelphia/)
Say, Homer, do you like football?
Do you like nachos?
Well, why don’t you come over and watch the game and we’ll have nachos, and then some beer.
I likely would’ve too, this post is the first time i ever heard of tamale.