When Homer Simpson posed this question, “Doughnuts, is there anything they can’t do?” he was being more than rhetorical. He was posing one of the most profound and precise questions affecting politics today.

Doughnuts. They’re everywhere a presidential candidate wants to be.

Not since John F. Kennedy declared “Ich bin Ein Berliner” has there been such presidential importance placed on doughnuts — jelly or otherwise.

These days, JFK’s line might still provide inspiration in Berlin … New Hampshire. That’s where a photograph carried by U.S. News & World Report once caught John McCain talking with a woman. Inside a Dunkin’ Donuts. Clutching a tasty treat.

McCain might do well to take a lesson from the Clintons. Hillary Clinton told a New Hampshire crowd in February: “The only thing I will try to do differently from my husband is not to make so many Dunkin’ Donuts stops. Bill gained about 20 pounds in the New Hampshire primary and I cannot afford that.”

A fluffy Bill Clinton eating donuts in New Hampshire — now where have we seen that before? How about the fictionalized Bill Clinton that John Travolta portrayed in “Primary Colors”? Wasn’t that a Krispy Kreme we spotted in the movie? The website Rotten Tomatoes sprinkles some facts on a doughnut-hole sized error: “There is a scene where Jack Stanton is campaigning in Manchester, New Hampshire. He is shown talking with a counter clerk in a ‘Krispy Kremes’ donut shop. There is no Krispy Kreme shop in Manchester, or even in New Hampshire.”

There is, however, a Dunkin Donuts. We know because, according to a Boston Globe account, Al Gore bought his poll workers coffee at a Manchester Dunkin’ Donuts the day he beat Bill Bradley in the 2000 New Hampshire primary.

Doughnuts didn’t escape the Republicans back then, either. Enter, again, John McCain. A December 1999 Time account from New Hampshire has John McCain growling, “Where’s the goddam doughnuts?” (If only Walter Mondale had likewise demanded of Gary Hart, “Where’s the goddam beef,” politics might have been forever different.)

In 2008 McCain can get the answer, from Mitt Romney. Romney’s old outfit Bain Capital is part of a consortium that owns Dunkin’ Donuts. Yes, putting the dough in donuts. We’ll bet dollars to doughnuts it’s paid off well.

How about a specific photo op at doughnut shop? Been there, done that. Last July President Bush went to a Dunkin’ Donuts in Alexandria, Virginia to a look at a program that is designed to help employers determine whether the employees are legally immigrants to the United States of America.

No wonder Joe Biden asserted this last year: “You CANNOT go into a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts without an Indian accent.” What, was Biden implying that Bush speaks Bengali? Maybe this Biden statement from 2005 offers clarity: “If anybody is going to find a terrorist about to put sarin gas into the heating system or cooling system of the largest mall in Little Rock, AR, or in Savannah, GA, … it is going to be a local cop on his way from a Dunkin’ Donuts shop.” Well, maybe not.

Seriously, with this obsession by presidential candidates over donuts – and it figures this would be the year we get a presidential candidate named Dunkin’, or at least Duncan (Hunter) — can we finally do away with the White House pastry chef? After all, Dunkin’ Donuts does deliver.

And where does Bill Clinton get his doughnuts from these days? According to USA Today, it’s a joint in Wesport, Conn, called Coffee An’ Donut Shop. No word if John Travolta hangs out there, too.

As Homer Simpson might otherwise say, D’ough!