Bernie as Bánh mi: MSNBC compares presidential candidates to sandwiches

Every cable news network has its share of bizarre moments — remember CNN's Don Lemon asking if a black hole was behind the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370? MSNBC got in on the action Wednesday afternoon, when anchor Kate Snow and Food & Wine's Noah Kaufman compared the Democratic presidential candidates to sandwiches on live television.

Yes, Food & Wine came up with a series that takes bread, assorted deli meats, and other edible accoutrements and has them stand in for the people vying to be the next president of the United States. Bernie Sanders, they decided, is a Bánh mi ("a little weird, a little unconventional, and a little spicy to many Americans' tastes"). Hillary Clinton is any of the menu items at Subway ("this sandwich will change however it must to suit your interests") and Lincoln Chafee's a wrap ("it's worth mentioning that no one really considers a wrap a viable sandwich"). Food & Wine must think Jim Webb is plain nasty, otherwise how can they explain naming him mushy egg salad ("that mayo is about as zesty as you can expect"). Martin O'Malley, for his part, is a soft-shell crab ("A Baltimore staple, this sandwich isn't as widely known as the others").

Some of these seem a little off — Sanders, of course, would be a Reuben, covered in Russian dressing and preferably cut into the shape of a hammer and sickle. But, props to whoever came up with this idea in the Food & Wine pitch meeting and was brave enough to say it out loud. If I ever had the idea to compare and contrast our next POTUS to a sandwich, I'd quietly slip out of the room and immediately check myself into some sort of facility.

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