I love ice cream, but apparently not as much as President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Every election year we see the same pattern of hot topics being debated between presidential candidates. This year, however, they have apparently decided to cool things down – literally.
It seems like the candidates have been breaking from the campaign trail more than they have been working it. Romney stopped at Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl in Zanesville, Ohio. Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan enjoyed ice cream from the Puritan Backroom restaurant in New Hampshire. Obama even gave a speech at an ice cream social in Northern Ohio. He likes snow cones too — he stopped for one of those at a roadside stand in Iowa.
Then, Romney created quite the scandal when he stopped at Millie’s in Nantucket, Mass., and ordered coffee ice cream. Traditionally observant Mormons abstain from consuming any mind- or body-altering substances like alcohol and caffeine. Romney apparently believes that coffee as merely an ice cream flavor is acceptable.
This summer has been unusually warm and maybe the candidates just want a tasty and refreshing snack. However, I believe their real motivation is a continuing, rather futile attempt to one-up each others’ down-hominess.
Crucial to the success of any United States presidential election is epitomizing the ability to be all-American. When you just can’t manage to be a white Protestant male, the easiest way to do this is to eat lots of ice cream and apple pie. Watching baseball doesn’t hurt either.
In case you still had any doubts, Obama is black, and he’s not Muslim. Although Romney appears to be the traditional white male candidate, he’s Mormon. This is all very confusing, especially to the privileged, upper-class voter. In an attempt to soothe our anxieties, Obama and Romney are trying to convince us that, really, they are just like us, meaning they want the same thing we want: to promote traditional American family values.
While it is difficult for Romney to convince me that he wants to keep education affordable to everyone, it’s much easier for him to show me that, just like me, he loves a good ice cream cone. I mean, really, who doesn’t?
Some people might fear that “Obamacare” will mean higher taxes and the downfall of modern medicine, but maybe we’ll forget about this because he likes a big scoop of ice cream for dessert and that tradition is practically universal.
So here we are, caught in this campaign battle to determine the most wholesome candidate, and at almost every campaign stop they can be seen trying to find a locally-owned ice cream shop.