In the blizzard of primary coverage, it's difficult to know what's relevant and for how long. With all the polls (both right and wrong) and endless iterations of each candidate's smallest gestures, being up on all that's presidential feels like visiting the stock market floor during a movie shoot in the 1980s.
     In other words, it's hard to know what's important, or to keep that sliver of reality alive in the informational deluge. I'm not about to change that with today's post.

     The wonderful folks at The Smoking Gun have their own methods of evaluating the candidates. Whenever possible, they publish the "tour riders" of visiting politicians. Tour riders, more usually associated with rock stars, lay out the Maslow's hierarchy of needs required to keep egos sedated. 
     So, on the theory that a peek at the gustatorial demands of politicians offers some sense of their psychological makeup, I'll parse the riders of two current presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Rudy Guiliani.
      In 2006, the Clintons stayed at the posh Goldeneye Resort in Jamaica for Easter weekend. TSG got hold of the resort's strategic plan for the visit.  They stayed in the 007 suite and took their titles with them even on vacation. "The President should be refered to as 'Mr. President'. Senator Clinton should be refered to as 'Senator Clinton'." How tiresome is that?
     They refused to eat shellfish or chocolate desserts, and very little red meat. If this gets out, I'm thinking it could hurt Hillary in crustacean-rich states like Florida, Maryland, Maine. Might as well forget about New England altogether and probably the Carolinas. The ban on both chocolate and shellfish is gonna kill her in Louisiana. And limiting red meat isn't going to play well, in well, the red states.
     In beverages, the Clintons are more strategic. For the blue states, they do consume wine. Their taste for Diet Coke is pretty universal, and decaf coffee, is what, a nod to the Midwest?
     For breakfast "He usually does granola cereal with berries and fruits and she does eggs." But the resort's menu included plenty of Jamaican favorites (oxtail, curried goat) that busted these rules (although the resort did try to substitute, for instance, fruit salad for the "Banana Fritters with rum sauce".)
     All of which made me hope that at some point that weekend, there was a moment where Mr. President and Senator Clinton sat on the floor of the 007 suite, surrounded by fritters, rum sauce all over their faces, and chucking bananas at posters of Fox pundits.
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     But the rock star treatment demanded by Rudy Giuliani makes J Lo look low maintenance. His rider for a $100,000 speech he delivered at Oklahoma State University in 2006 is a frightening look inside the mind of a would-be leader of the free world.
     First off, Giuliani required a private jet, Gulfstream IV or larger, to fly him roundtrip from NYC to his speaking engagement at an estimated cost of at least $35k. Once there, his contract stipulated "one sedan and one large SUV" to drive him and his posse around. Clients were also required to book five hotel rooms, including a two-bedroom suite for Giuliani, under the name "Deana Haidary" which I'm going to assume is his drag name.
     Giuliani banned press at his speech, unless they were pre-approved, and all recording devices. Pictures were allowed, as long as they were taken without flash, during the first three minutes of his speech or in posed shots, and only if "Mr. Giuliani determines that the taking of such photographs is not a distraction to him." 
     There was a two-week approval process for the seating chart at Guiliani's table. He was also big on velvet rope receiving lines.
     Of course, while we're on the subject, don't miss the classic "vulnerability study" Giuliani had conducted on himself in 1993, prior to his running for NYC mayor.  
     For the updated version of Giuliani's foibles, see the New Yorker, for Elizabeth Kolbert's "Old Habits," or the shorter, funnier version in Paul Slansky's "Giuliani Time".