by Christi Parsons
NASHUA, N.H. -- Rudy Giuliani combined campaigning with a little shopping here this weekend, and pulled it off with all the subtlety of an elephant in a china shop.
The Republican candidate made a surprise visit at a store on Main Street specializing in New Hampshire-made candies and knick-knacks, not to mention several fragile ceramics.
Not good, given that Giuliani had about thirty reporters, a full complement of staff, his security detail and a few curious onlookers in his wake.
Twice, some little mugs with moose faces on them came perilously close to toppling off the shelf. Innocent shoppers pressed themselves against the walls of the narrow store to make way for the swarm.
Meanwhile Giuliani busied himself with some woodsy Christmas ornaments as if the whole thing were very normal.
It's an act candidates carry out all the time, as they wade through diners in the middle of lunch rush or descend upon coffee shops, stores and city streets -- all the while pretending that they haven't just A-bombed whatever folksy setting they were trying to become part of.
And like the old saying goes, when the elephants stampede, it's the grass that suffers.
In the knickknack shop, a Manchester seventh grader named Megan Cleary looked up from a checker set she'd been inspecting when the crowd came in with a look of horror on her face.
"Who is that?" she asked her dad.
"He's running for president," he told her. "He used to be the mayor of New York."
Eyes wide, Cleary looked for a break in the crowd.
"Eek," she said, grabbing a friend's hand when she spotted an opening. "Let's get out of here."
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