Rudy Passes on Bagel
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IRVINE, Calif. (AP) – He skipped the bagel.
New Yorker Mayor Giuliani dropped into a California bagel shop Friday in the middle of a state fundraising swing. He pumped a lot of hands. Smiled for pictures. Had some coffee – even autographed a paper cup.
But the Republican presidential candidate didn’t touch the California bagels.
“I know he’s on a bit of a time crunch,” said Scott Thompson, the manager of the shop, which was filled with a morning breakfast crowd along with Giuliani partisans assembled for his stopover.
“I didn’t take it personally,” Mr. Thompson said.
Mr. Giuliani lavished praise on the coffee, and an aide said later that the mayor wasn’t snubbing the West Coast’s version of New York’s legendary nosh.
“He ate earlier,” spokesman Jarrod Agen said. He “came to meet voters.”
It’s a tradition for politicians to sample the fare when visiting restaurants and delis. Mr. Giuliani is a noted food lover – and his waistline has sometimes shown it. As mayor, he liked to wager the city’s prized bagels in bets with other mayors during playoff season. And when California Gov. Pete Wilson visited him at City Hall in 1995, what did they have for breakfast? Bagels.
But this time he left the bagels stacked behind the glass counter.
The mayor’s arrival at the California shop set off a round of hearty applause, and he planted a kiss on one voter’s cheek. He said he planned to take a few days off over the July Fourth holiday and might play some golf. He dismissed the polls, even though he’s been ahead in most of them.
Not everyone was transfixed by the celebrity visitor.
Jamie Hamilton, 26, an Orange County graphic designer waiting for her breakfast with her boyfriend, said she’d been too busy to pay attention to the 2008 race.
“I’ve heard his name,” she said when asked about Mr. Giuliani. “Is he still the mayor of New York?”
As Mr. Giuliani’s entourage headed back to a pair of black SUVs, Merrilee Gardner, 61, of Irvine, shouted from the sidewalk, “Vote for Hillary.”
She’s was talking about Mr. Giuliani’s sometimes rival, Senator Clinton, Democrat of New York.
Ms. Gardner, a Democrat, didn’t have any bad words for the former mayor.
But Americans, she said, “desperately need a major change.”
