News-Record.com

The National Beer Wholesalers Association has been doing this online poll of which presidential candidate voters would rather have a beer with. The North Carolina Beer and Wine Wholesalers held a similar event here in Raleigh Wednesday night down at the Flying Saucer.

I'm not sure that the event served any purpose other than to promote the beer drinking culture and show us scruffy media types that politics didn't have to be all up tight.

As for who won the caucus, who knows?

"I don't wnat to give it way, but the front runners are Ron Paul and Harrison Ford," said Dean Plunkett, executive director of the group.

Personally, I cast my ballot for Paul O'Connor, the curmudgeonly columnist for the Winston-Salem Journal. (And yes, boss, I paid for all my own beer.) Other votes were cast for Harry Truman, Theodore Roosevelt, Steven Colbert and "Dennis Kucinich's hot red-headed wife." I'm thinking there were some college students in the crowd based on that last one.

If there is a serious point to be had here, it's that how "likeable" a candidate is plays some role in whether they get elected. Supposedly this was a factor at work in 2004 when the more home-spun Bush was the candidate folks most would have liked to have a beer with. (I'm figuring you would have poured some Pinot Grigio at Kerry's pad anyway.)

Do I think this is going to decide either nomination? Absolutely not. If fact, I think the better question is which candidate would you least want to have beer with? My guess is that a lot of middle ground voters are going to be pushed away from a candidate this spring rather than drawn to one on Feb. 5 and beyond.

I've met a lot of Democrats who think that Obama or Clinton is an untenable choice, and are voting with the other one because of that - not because they are particularly enthused about their candidate. And I think there is a lot of that same feeling at play among Republicans, who see some fatal flaw in either McCain, Romney or Huckabee and will go in some other direction because of that.