image: Brian Snyder/Reuters via Buzzfeed
Mitt Romney's campaign had already printed the "Victory Rally" press passes when they hastily decided to turn an Ohio stump speech into a "storm relief event" yesterday. So Romney could be photographed receiving canned food and other supplies donated by his supporters. Which would be loaded onto a waiting Penske truck and, presumably, driven to New Jersey or wherever.
image of Mitt getting crosswise via Jonathan Crowley/NYT
As Buzzfeed reports, though,
the last-minute nature of the call for donations left some in the campaign concerned that they would end up with an empty truck. So the night before the event, campaign aides went to a local Wal Mart and spent $5,000 on granola bars, canned food, and diapers to put on display while they waited for donations to come in.Those prop supplies came in handy when supporters who didn't have something to 'donate' still lined up, wanting to meet their man; a campaign staffer. "Just grab something," they were told. And they did.
I would love to find photos of the same case of Gatorade being re-donated several times.
But it sounds like Mitt only actually worked the line for 30 minutes, so the campaign's Walmart stash probably held up. And I guess it's not important at what kind of shelter Mitt's Penske truckload of storm relief props ends up, as long as Paul Ryan is on hand to restack them.
The Making of Romney's Storm Relief Event [buzzfeed]
