'cause I could really go for some dripping-with-sauce baby back ribs, right fucking now!

Yeah.

Every time they eat our ribs, THEY appropriate OUR culture--nyuck, nyuck!!!

they way he did with Palin?

Rather than trying something new.
This is a typical conservative mindset.

They sure are very big on risk aversion, aren't they? Music, movies, especially food.

Not scientific or anything, but everybody I've personally seen/heard actually that prefer bland, vanilla, well-done meat smothered in ketchup, chain stuff were all conservatives. Overt, gotta-tell-everybody-they-meet-how conservative-they-are conservatives.

I suspect that wealthy politicians on both sides prefer fancy restaurants to chain restaurants that are accessible to the riff-raff. His Chili's dinner is much more likely to be for show.

That is certainly not the case in New York City.
You can find many moderate priced restaurants of all kinds, particularly ethnic. Many small ones would have been happy to accommodate him and get the publicity.
Instead he chose to eat at a chain and get predictable food.

n/t

The Secret Service picks when you are in a hurry. They have deals with national chains to effectively shut them down for security reasons. A small restaurant can't afford this/might refuse/etc.

I ate at a lot of Howard Johnson's with JFK (well, not "with" him, but at the same time), followed by Bob's Big Boy or whatever it was called.