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Voters use gut feeling to pick the next US president

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-15 14:53

WASHINGTON  - Three weeks before the US presidential election, Americans were voting early -- and also at midday and dinnertime -- and showing a gut preference for whom they want to see in the White House.

At the 1950s-style Silver Diner in Rockville, a suburb of Washington, Sean Collins, a plumber, was tucking into an Obamalette -- an omelette filled with many of the ingredients of the deep-dish pizzas that are the signature of Chicago, where Obama began his public service career.

At 7-Eleven convenience stores across the US, customers vote for Obama or McCain by choosing a cup of coffee or another hot drink in a blue Obama cup, a red McCain cup or a generic cup, if they still haven't made a choice. [Agencies]

"As soon as I saw it said 'Obama', I chose it," Collins said, as he voted with his stomach for Democratic White House contender Barack Obama.

"I didn't even look at the ingredients," he said, adding that the McCainlette -- with its honey barbecue chicken and fresh herbs and spices evoking Republican presidential candidate John McCain's home state of Arizona and favorite style of cooking -- would likely have won his vote under different circumstances.

At 7-Eleven convenience stores across the United States, customers vote for Obama or McCain by choosing a cup of coffee or another hot drink in a blue Obama cup, a red McCain cup or a generic cup, if they still haven't made a choice.

The partisan cups each have a McCain or Obama barcode, which, when scanned at the cash desk, registers a vote for the candidate.

The Silver Diner has sold nearly 2,000 McCainlettes and Obamalettes since the start of the month in 16 outlets in New Jersey, Virginia and Maryland -- including one at Baltimore International Airport, which might give foreigners their only chance to choose the next US head of state.

Each diner posts its own score in the entranceway, and the score for all 16 diners is updated daily on the company's website.

With three weeks to go, Obama was leading McCain by 1,288 Obamalettes to 612 McCainlettes, or 67 percent to 33 percent.

"It's not looking good for McCain right now," said Silver Diner's head of culinary operations Ype van Hengst, a Dutchman who moved to the United States 31 years ago.

Even the once died-in-the-wool Republican state of Virginia, where Silver Diner has most of its restaurants, was showing a pronounced taste for Obama, at least in his omelette incarnation, said van Hengst.

The results of 7-Eleven's election are tallied daily and posted on a specially created 7-election.com website, where a map of the United States showed a swathe of blue states -- the color of the Democratic Party -- stretching from coast to coast.

Only three states -- North Carolina, West Virginia and New Hampshire -- were Republican red on the map.

Furin's bakery in the swank Georgetown neighborhood of Washington was urging clients to cast their vote with a cookie -- either blue for Obama or red for McCain.

"We haven't been keeping a close count but we've sold several thousand cookies, and the vote is probably running about 60 percent for Obama, 40 percent for McCain," owner Bernie Furin, a McCain supporter said.

Although the palate polls are unabashedly unscientific, they should not be brushed aside like a pile of crumbs. The 7-election, which is being held for the third time, has been uncannily accurate in predicting the outcome of the past two real presidential elections.

"Our customers have called the last two elections by their coffee vote, and in 2004, the 7-election final result ended up being within a fraction of a percentage point of the actual national election result," 7-Eleven regional market manager Scott Loomis said.

With three weeks to go before the November 4 showdown between Obama and McCain, nearly three-quarters of a million votes have been cast in the 7-election.

Obama had a healthy lead, with around 60 percent of 7-eleven customers drinking from blue cups against 40 percent who chose red for McCain.

"We could have found a really inexpensive way in these tough economic times to pick the president of the United States," Van Hengst said.

"Rather than spending millions of dollars on campaigns, we could get people to go to diners and cafes and vote with their palates.

"We would be boosting the economy, feeding hungry people, and we could use the millions saved for things like healthcare," he said, overlooking the fact that thousands would probably end up with egg on their face, not to mention those who would insist they have strong grounds for a rerun.