Anyone familiar with Newburgh, N.Y., just has to shake their head and laugh.

The story being passed around the web today is this one: Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and his running mate, Sen. John Edwards, stopped off at a Wendy's yesterday in Newburgh.

On the surface, it's a nice enough story: Edwards and his wife celebrate their anniversary every year at Wendys. Yesterday was their 27th.

But when Kerry stopped to make small talk with a couple of servicemen trying to eat a meal there, the Marines acted coolly. It made for a negative news story.

The Kerry-Edwards advance folks obviously didn't factor in was the location.

When it comes to patriotism, Newburgh is a company town. Stewart Airport is home to a major Air National Guard base and has been for years. Twenty miles up the road is the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

In 1981, when the American hostages were finally freed from Iran and were flown back home, their first stop on U.S. soil was Newburgh. The area - part rural, part suburban - gave their fellow Americans a ticker-tape parade that would make the New York Yankees blush.

During the first Gulf War, Newburgh was pretty much the Yellow Ribbon headquarters of America.

So on his first day as the official Democratic nominee, Kerry landed in Newburgh to start the first leg of his victory lap across the country. What did he get? He got a Marine who said this: "I'm 100 percent against him."

Even though Newburgh is in New York - a state that will probably go 80 percent for Kerry in November - it's a town that looks like much of the country between New York City and San Francisco. American, hardworking and not very happy when you interrupt their meal.

Maybe the Kerry advance team should have looked for a Wendy's fifty miles south - say in Soho, in between a couple of art galleries or something. For Kerry, it would have probably been safer than between a couple of Marines in Newburgh.