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Pennsylvania is obviously a battleground state in 2024. Trump won an upset victory in the Keystone State in 2016 and that is again a possibility. Western PA is a hotbed of campaigning for both parties. A Pittsburgh-based food icon became an illustrative case of how each side campaigns and how they treat people. Primanti Brothers has been around since 1933 and has grown into an iconic Pittsburgh-area restaurant and sports bar chain. Prices are moderate for the generally plus-size portions along with its available mid-tier beers. Sports will always be on, especially if the Steelers are playing. Primanti's is perhaps best known for its large stacked, meaty sandwiches with fries and slaw packed on. The original sandwich was known as the "Primanti's Brothers sandwich."
A Tale of Two Primanti Brothers visits:
(1) J.D. Vance, in a bit of retail politics, recently made a visit to a Primanti Brothers but was apparently refused service. Vance and his crew entourage were not all able to enter for a meal while meeting with supportive restaurant goers as part of their campaign. The details are still a bit unclear. Perhaps the visit was not pre-scheduled and he simply dropped in and took the staff off guard. Maybe the cameras and attention were a bit much and thought disruptive to regular customers. Or maybe the local manager simply didn't like Vance and had the segregationist attitude of not allowing deplorables a seat at the Primanti lunch counter. The report states that a Vance staffer attempted to negotiate with the location manager and even call corporate.
Regardless of what exactly transpired that day, I think Vance handled it well. He was gracious and covered the meal tabs of the Primanti customers, even leaving a large tip for the servers. Of course, he was also underlining the Trump "No Tax on Tips" policy aimed at helping many struggling service and hospitality workers. This policy is in stark contrast with the Biden/Harris administration's policy of beefing up the IRS and demanding reported cumulative transactions of as little as $600 to be taxed under threat of penalty. So, basically, selling a few things on eBay and Craigslist over the span of a year for a bit of cash could potentially make you a tax-evading criminal.
This episode might have come and gone with no real public attention, but that was not to be once the Harris/Walz campaign couldn't help themselves dunking on the snubbed Vance. Once that happened new scrutiny was brought to light.
(2) The Kamala Harris campaign some weeks earlier had visited a Primanti Brothers with a much different dynamic than Vance. Instead of being a Vance-style low-profile drop-in with real customers, Kamala opted for a Russian-style dog and pony show with evidently pre-planned coordination with Primanti Brothers corporate. Approaching the busy hours of operation, the Harris campaign arrived and had the real customers thrown out. This shocked protesting customers who didn't understand what was going on. The filthy Pennsylvanian peasants had to be evicted to make the Primanti environment sterile for the Kamala campaign to set up a fake atmosphere for a filmed political stunt to show her authentic grassroots-supported campaign.
Once the unworthy locals were ushered out, paid actors were bused in to take their place. Campaign aids then set up shop for scripted interactions and T.V. show-style shots of Kamala Harris going around mingling with Pennsylvania voters. Harris dutifully listened to the concerns of these fake Primanti customers with cameras rolling and baby-faced reporters "reporting" what they watched. It's amazing how these Primanti customers don't seem to mention much about local Pennsylvania issues, but are rather dazzled by Kamala's joy and inspiration. In some cases, Kamala takes a phony interest in the personal details of some customer actors' lives, no doubt written in advance by a public relations team. She even poses for photos with fawning actor voters.
I've been to Primanti Brothers more than a couple times. The customer base typically doesn't dress or look like the people in Kamala's publicity stunt. It's obviously all faked for anyone with some familiarity and a critical eye. What is real, though, is the petty sneering the Harris campaign did at Vance regarding the episode of him being turned away at Primanti's that one day. We keep hearing about how "authenticity" is so important to voters. Well, I have my doubts about that when it comes to Democrat Party line voters. But episodes like this might be enough to tilt non-party voters to lean Trump/Vance — if it gets noticed.
Creating your own Reality
I'm reminded of a quote from another Pittsburgh icon:
“It’s not what you are that counts, it’s what they think you are.”
―
Warhol was a man who clearly understood the importance and power of cultivating an image of oneself to display and market to the world. The pop artist legend was not only able to create a persona of himself — an alter ego of a character that he inhabited — but also got others to buy into it wholesale. Andy Warhol was not especially political, but he can be a fascinating case study of the power of persona, even beyond his niche.
The Harris/Walz campaign seems to be a derivative of the Biden/Harris administration in this vein of cultivating a phony facade to a crass, bumpkin public. But as the public is given a virtual tour of the Kamala/Walz village, don't stop to linger and inspect. There will be someone to hurry you along, so keep up with the group. Sometimes reality imitates art, as they say.
“Art is what you can get away with.”―
This Primanti Brothers episode may be forgotten in a week or two — it's the way these news cycles go. Hopefully, though, the public will take notice. It could become a memorable political misstep, like not being able to spell "potatoe." Now I wonder if I'll be able to walk into Primanti's and order a "Potemkin Brothers sandwich." It might be a fitting addition to the menu.
Discussion (16)
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The comparison says much about the two campaigns and the candidates.
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Gee, just think if we had a free and fair press . This would be a national story .
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From reading multiple stories about the two campaign visits, I might be able to believe that the restaurant had reasons other than political ones for treating the visits by the two candidates differently. Although at the Harris event it seems the restaurant did a lousy to non-existent customer service job of notifying the regular customers that they would be evicted for an arranged private Harris event right up until the moment of eviction.
But, as your post title suggests, a curious media might ask the Harris campaign why everything around Harris seems to have to be staged, orchestrated, choreographed, scripted, and possibly rehearsed?
Is there going to be a script and a TelePrompter when a potential President Harris meets with leaders of foreign governments, including hostile foreign governments? Will leaders of foreign governments promise to ask only friendly questions, and to make only supportive remarks? Will there be appropriate actors available to fill in for people she will be expected to visit who are affected by the wars, violence, or natural disasters that might take place during her term as president? When a potential President Harris visits foreign locations, is it certain that the local government will agree to clear out the local population and substitute in appropriately prepared, coached, and scripted actors?
In July there were rumors that Vice President Harris needed a rehearsal even for being a guest at a dinner party among friendly D.C. media type people.
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Can Kamala Harris do anything on her own?
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Campaign staffers can sure be arrogant and pushy about these things. I remember when Ronald Reagan made a last whistle stop in Battle Creek just before the 1980 election, down by the old train depot (now a restaurant). We took the kids down for the occasion. It wasn't nearly as bad as what you're describing. They didn't replace one crowd with another. But the staffers were kind of pushy with the crowd in the way they got them to hold up banners, etc. I don't think it dissuaded anyone, including Mrs R and me, from voting for Reagan, but I made sure we stayed back and away where they couldn't push us around. It kind of left me with a bad taste about these events. Reagan himself gave a decent albeit short talk, but I didn't become a big Reagan fan until after he was inaugurated and I learned that he meant what he had said.
I do allow that the staff are in a hurry and need to keep things moving quickly, and that being polite would use up valuable time.
Despite the unpleasant taste I did go to a Dan Quayle rally when he came to Battle Creek, I think in 1992 and not 1988 (when I was busy helping with some congressional door-to-door campaign work). I don't remember anything unpleasant about it, but it wasn't particularly interesting or exciting.
The only other presidential campaign event I can remember was a Nelson Rockefeller rally in St Paul (or maybe it was Minneapolis) when he was running in 1968. The Young Republican club at my college, a small Lutheran college, organized an expedition to the event. I had not been a fan of Rockefeller ever since 1964, but I went along and even got his autograph. I decided afterward that going after autographs was silly, and other than getting a few books autographed never did it again. I also decided that I didn't particularly like hanging around with Young Republicans. I didn't say "never again," but I never got around to having anything more to do with that organization, either. My dislike of GOPe was growing, even though that was not the term used for them in those days. I later tried out the Democrats for a while (more of an anti-Nixon than pro-Democrat move, and I was also tired of all the Republican excuses for racism, perhaps from WFB but that name didn't mean a lot to me at the time so I'm not sure) but by 1976 had decided that they were worse than Republicans, and I had already started to wash the Democrat filth off of me.
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When the news hit about Kamala skipping the Al Smith Dinner, I thought about this and wondered if this was part of her reasons to miss it.
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