With the election only ten months away, President Joe Biden is getting out of the White House and, just like scores of politicians before him, heading out to campaign along America’s Main Streets and visit the food businesses that line them. Historically, this is both a predictable and risky move. Sure, knocking back whiskey shots in an Indiana bar (a la Hilary Clinton in 2008) may establish you as an everyman in the mind of your constituents, but it may also reveal you to be a bit of a fraud, like when Gerald Ford choked on still-husked tamal while campaigning in San Antonio or when mayoral-hopeful Andrew Yang took and documented an ill-fated New York City “bodega” tour.
According to some, however, Biden made a different kind of political faux pas when visiting Nowhere Coffee in Emmaus, Pa., a quaint community of 11,500 nestled on the northern slope of South Mountain, on Friday. After ordering a smoothie, he expressed shock at the $6 price tag. Whether his surprise was real or feigned depends on if you ask press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre — who says it was a joke — or Fox News, as the network has been running consistent “smoothiegate” coverage in the days since in order to demonstrate how apparently out of touch Biden is from his constituents.
