Fiastro pays up
If you happened to be in Cafe Troia in Towson today for lunch you might have seen Democratic Sen. Jim Brochin lunching with John Fiastro, president of the 42nd District Republican Club.
Politics was not only on the menu, it was the reason the two were there as Fiastro was making good on a wager the two made about the outcome of one precinct in the Sen. Andy Harris - Frank Kratovil congressional race.
The bet began on Election Day when the pair were working the poll at St. Thomas Episcopal Church on Providence Road for their respective candidates — Fiastro for Harris and Brochin for Kratovil.
Brochin, working his home precinct, vowed Kratovil would win more than 45 percent of the vote. Fiastro countered that Harris would defeat the Democrat by more than 10 points.
The pair put a lunch on the line to make it interesting.
Kratovil took just over 46 percent of the vote in the precinct. It wasn’t long before Brochin’s staff was calling to schedule the lunch, Fiastro said.
The fist choice was Aldo’s in Baltimore. Then, later, it was the Oregon Grille in Hunt Valley, near Brochin’s insurance office.
“I could have really been tough on him,” Brochin said after the lunch. “I gave him a break.”
Brochin even gave up the opportunity to dine from Cafe Troia’s dinner menu and stuck with lunch offerings.
Fiastro said his guest had a fiscally responsible lunch.
“He didn’t put me over a barrel,” Fiastro said, adding that the senator “got to eat chicken, and I got to eat crow.”