Daily Inspiration Quote by Rich Lowry

The jab lands because it pretends to be about lunch while really litigating legitimacy. “John Kerry couldn't even order a Philly cheesesteak properly” isn’t meant to inform you about Kerry’s palate; it’s meant to brand him as the kind of politician who treats “regular people” like a field assignment. In one greasy, hyper-local sandwich, Lowry compresses a whole cultural indictment: the elite Democrat as tourist in Middle America, fluent in policy memos but clumsy in the vernacular.

The mechanics are classic gatekeeping. A Philly cheesesteak is less a menu item than a shibboleth: get the phrasing wrong and you’re exposed. The accusation of “couldn’t even order properly” suggests not just unfamiliarity but incompetence at the one job politics increasingly demands - performing authenticity on command. It’s a critique aimed at the camera, not the counter.

Context matters: Kerry’s 2004 campaign struggled with an image problem, cast by opponents as patrician and over-scripted. Conservatives didn’t need to rebut his arguments if they could make him feel culturally off-key. The cheesesteak line plays like a punchline, but it’s also a strategy: shift debate from Iraq or the economy to vibes, from decisions to demeanor.

Lowry, as an editor, deploys the small humiliation as a metonym for big distrust. If the candidate can’t navigate a sandwich ritual, the insinuation goes, how can he navigate the country? The cruelty is the point: it turns identity into a test you can fail in public.