This is a political controversy no matter how you slice it:
When GOP front-runner Mitt Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., gathered at a sandwich shop in Waukesha today to drum up support for Romney in the Badger State primary, they might have been engaging in “subs-for-votes” election bribery, according to the state’s Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin issued a complaint of bribery hours after the event, holding a news conference in downtown Milwaukee to air its grievances.
“It is a clear violation of Wisconsin election law, cut and dry,” the Democrat Party’s representative in Wisconsin told ABC News.
The group is filing its complaint with the state Government Accountability Board, which oversees the elections and will handle the complaint going forward.
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Romney and Ryan’s event at Cousins Subs, billed by the former’s presidential campaign as an “Election Day Lunch,” was attended by a solid crowd on the day of the state’s primary.
The two politicos stood behind the store’s counter, handed out subs to a long line of people in attendance, and urged them to go vote
.
So let me guess about the Republican primary lunch meat:
If Romney was handing out a sub it’d be baloney.
If Gingrich was handing out a sub it’d be overstuffed ham.
If non-candidate Jeb Bush handed out a sub it’d be chicken.
If Herman handed out a sub it’d be tongue and chicken breast.
If Rick Perry handed out a sub it’d be turkey.
Rick Santorum would hand out dessert: Angel’s food cake.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.