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Mitt Romney Shows Off Regular Tastes

2012

Name-checks Southwest Airlines, eats Carl’s Jr.

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“Delicious,” Mitt Romney said recently after eating the $4.39 jalapeno chicken sandwich at Carl’s Jr.—one of many recent concerted efforts by the wealthy former Massachusetts governor to show off his everyman tastes. Romney also had Carl’s Jr. at the Reagan Library debate; publicly ate a Subway breakfast sandwich (“better than the usual campaign diet of morning donuts,” he said); and has spoken and tweeted frequently about flying Southwest, the budget airline. Romney, of course, is frequently accused of trying too hard to appear regular, which is why people are paying attention to this minutiae in the first place. His aides insist he really enjoys flying cheaply—they say he was reluctant to meet with John McCain in Boston after withdrawing in 2008 because he had “a great Jet Blue cheap rate” to visit his son—and that he likes drive-thru fast food so he can spend more time shaking hands.

Read it at The New York Times