CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - The beer v. wine vote « - Blogs from CNN.com

As some Americans recover from hangovers induced by St. Patrick’s Day, a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll released Tuesday suggests a voter’s drinking preferences may also reveal their political preferences.

Beer drinkers appear more likely to vote for Sen. John McCain in November, while those who enjoy wine say they’re more likely to vote Democratic in the fall. [ed.: Didn't see that one coming, not even a little tiny bit.] Among registered voters who prefer beer to wine, McCain has a 53 percent-46 percent edge over Sen. Hillary Clinton while McCain winds up in a virtual tie with Sen. Barack Obama among beer drinkers. In the head-to-head match-ups with McCain, Sens. Obama and Clinton each win a majority among registered voters who prefer wine to beer.

Overall, 28 percent of all Americans say they prefer beer to wine and 31 percent say they would rather have a glass of wine than a bottle of brew. (The rest claim that they never drink under any circumstances.)

The apparent political differences are really matters of gender and class – men are big beer drinkers while women prefer wine over beer, as do higher-income Americans and college graduates.

The poll of 950 registered voters was conducted by telephone on March 14-16 and has a sampling error of plus or minus 6.5 percentage points.

Where are the whisky drinkers? The clear liquor drinkers? The malt liquor voters? Crazy-making tequila people? Hello? Life ain’t just beer and wine, you corporate drones. There is a shockingly cold martini with just the perfect number of droplets of olive juice, there is the soothing warmth of small-batch bourbon served neat (and maybe one tiny cube of ice), there is the sloppy-ass margarita pitcher standing on a old door turned up on sawhorses, there is the head-hammering Colt 45. These must be in consideration.

I love that there sampling error that makes this poll perfectly meaningless. But it gave me a reason to post, so I’m happy, and now you are, too. And not in one million years will you convince me that 69% of America is tee-totaling. I think that’s called confirmation bias, but I drink beer, so I can’t possibly know for sure.

That’s a rack of ultra-fine aged single-malt scotches. It had wheels, so you could take it with you, heh heh. I was such a redneck, I just wanted to drink the Scottish beer (and I did), but I did suck down a few shots 20 year-old Lachglenmorangivet in deference to my hosts, and we did indeed have haggis that night, and they had some dude come in and recite some Burns for us as a sort of blessing, Charles. That might even have been the name of the tune…The Blessing of the Haggis.

Needless to say, I never felt more at home outside of the Great Republic of Texas. Golfing, boozing, fishing, crappy weather, a gajillion newspapers…far too cold, though, especially in a skirt.

Ah, here we are — An Address to a Haggis. I’ve eaten worse, and it wasn’t that bad, and the poor bastards are hamstrung by a lack of native chilis.