Bush, McCain dine on hot dogs in White House lunch

President George W. Bush welcomes Republican Presidential candidate John McCain to the White House Rose Garden in Washington, March 5, 2008.

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (Reuters) - President George W. Bush may have given presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain the royal treatment at the White House on Wednesday, but the two men did not exactly have a meal fit for a king.

McCain, an Arizona senator, picked up the president's endorsement for his candidacy while dining on something simple: a hot dog.

"He said he was having a hot dog, so I had a hot dog," McCain, referring to Bush, told reporters on his campaign plane during a flight to Florida.

So does a hot dog taste any different when it's prepared in the White House?

"It tasted pretty much the same to me," McCain said.

Bush formally endorsed his former rival after the 71-year-old locked up their party's presidential nomination on Tuesday night.

The two men discussed foreign affairs, the war in Iraq, and the process of selecting a vice president during lunch, McCain said.

Bush welcomed McCain and his wife, Cindy, in a formal entrance and held a joint news conference with his would-be-successor in the famous Rose Garden after their meal.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Editing by Sandra Maler))