What's with the candidates delivering coffee?

Ever since she entered public life and then later confronted travelgate and whitewater and monicagate and all those other bothersome news stories of the 1990s, Hillary Clinton has (choose one) LOVED  ADMIRED   DESPISED   TOLERATED   the news media.

During the current campaign for obvious strategic political reasons she has been basically unavailable to the media for distracting, off-message questions that might change the day's news theme away from what her campaign wants. The other day when asked questions by reporters she simply stared through them. This week even would-be repeat first daughter Chelsea Clinton refused to speak with a reporter who was nine years old and representing her school newspaper.

So it was with some startlement today that the bus carrying news media representatives covering her Iowa caucus campaign, including The Times' Peter Wallsten, suddenly had a visitor climbing its front stairs in Indianola, Iowa. It was none other than the candidate herself. She was delivering bagels and some coffee!

Was it a peace offering? Who knows? The end of any campaign like the current Iowa caucus, which occurs Thursday evening, is like a class graduating in which even antagonists realize they've endured something special together. John Edwards also delivered coffee to his press bus this morning.

“I didn’t want you to feel deprived,” Clinton said. She then handed the food to a press aide as she stood at the front of the bus, clearly not interested in stepping too far into the lion’s den.

“We wanted to get New York bagels,” she quipped, an indication that the offerings on this frigid Iowa morning were probably not from H&H. Then she graciously thanked reporters for taking time away from families and real lives to trail her every move over the past year or so.

“I don’t know about you, but for me it’s been a great experience,” she said. “Maybe we’ll toast tomorrow night.”

--Andrew Malcolm