CQPolitics.com - Presidential campaigns, no less than military ones, travel on their stomachs. So amid all the hectic reporting on the “money primary” — showing which 2008 aspirants are raising more, spending more and saving more than the others — one also can find in Federal Election Commission filings a de facto Washington guide to presidential wannabe dining.
So if, for instance, you’re searching for a fancy Capitol Hill haunt with a good steak tartar, you could follow the lead of the Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) campaign. Expenditure listings show that the Illinois senator’s team dropped a cool $2,178 on two visits to the tony Bistro Bis in the first three months of the year.
Or perhaps you’d prefer more casual — and affordable — Mediterranean fare with outdoor seating. Then you might emulate the campaign of another Democrat, the vegetarian Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio. His strategists flocked to Taverna the Greek Islands, another Capitol Hill standby, three times over an eight-day stretch.
Then, of course, there are the see-and-be-seen eateries, such as Dupont Circle’s Capitol Grille, a frequent entry in the first-quarter filings of Rudolph Giuliani, the former GOP mayor of New York. The campaign staff of Connecticut’s Christopher J. Dodd , the Democratic chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, likes to unwind at another lively Capitol Hill spot, Johnny’s Half-Shell.
Meanwhile, the culinary endorsements of Arizona’s Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) have been trending upscale even as his poll numbers stagnate. His campaign shelled out a whopping $28,390 for an event at the swank New Orleans eatery Acadiana in January.
But for a true cross-section of the D.C. dining experience, the Hillary Rodham Clinton camp wins hands down. The New York senator’s campaign workers spent more than $4,000 at eight local restaurants in January, February and March. From the popular Dupont Circle hangout Sushi Taro to Maggiano’s, the family-style pasta haven in Friendship Heights, the choices reflected a little something for everyone. Clinton’s team even paid a nostalgic visit to the Dupont Chinese eatery Meiwah, a culinary mainstay for workers in her husband’s White House.
Owner Larry La says his deliveries often fueled the famously long hours logged by policy hands in the Clinton White House. “We got calls almost seven days per week,” says La, who still has photos of that first couple up on his walls. “Maybe if she wins,” he adds, “I would have all that business back again.”
source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20070423/pl_cq_politics/fromcqweeklythedinersguidetoquarterlycampaigndiscl osures [link] 
04-24-2007, 02:00 PM
