Mitt Romney's literacy in local institutions is not doing fine.
His swing-state bus tour stopped Sunday in Cornwall, Pa., where the Republican presidential hopeful found himself at the center of a fierce local debate.
"Where do you get your hoagies here?" Romney asked supporters gathered at the Cornwall Iron Furnace. "Do you get them at Wawa's? Is that where you get them?"
When audience members audibly disapproved of Romney namedropping the Pennsylvania-based chain, he revised his question, asking if they instead bought their sandwiches at rival store Sheetz. The new suggestion caused even greater negative feedback.
"I'm sorry," Romney said. "I know it's a very big state divide."
Romney went on to applaud "Wawa's" -- the actual name of the chain is Wawa (no "s") -- for its electronic ordering system, which he discovered at a Quakertown store earlier in the weekend. He reportedly ordered a meatball hoagie with sweet peppers and pickles while mulling options for his running mate.
"You press a little touch-tone keypad," Romney said, referring to the chain's touch-screen system. "You touch this, touch this, go pay the cashier, and there's your sandwich. It's amazing!"
Playing back the Cornwall stump speech later in the day, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell joked that she gets the "feeling that Mitt Romney has not been to too many Wawas along the roadside in Pennsylvania."
Sunday was not the first time Romney stumbled in trying to connect with locals on the campaign trail.
"I'm learning to say 'y'all' and I like grits. Strange things are happening to me," Romney said at a campaign event in Pascagoula, Miss., before the state's primary earlier this year.
The contrived remarks caught flack from Chris Brown, former head of the Alabama Republican Party. Brown also took Romney to task for recruiting comedian Jeff Foxworthy as a stump mate throughout the Deep South.
"Does he think we're all rednecks?" Brown asked the Boston Herald in March.
Below, a look back at some of Romney's most awkward moments:
