Which Presidential Candidate Would You Rather Have a Beer With?

So you’re at the bar, and in walks the remaining presidential candidates. They each plop down at a separate table, and you’re allowed to join only one of them. Who do you pick?

That’s what the folks at the North Carolina Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association want to know. They’re planning a “beer caucus” at the Flying Saucer in Raleigh from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Wednesday. Those who attend will be asked which candidate they’d prefer to have a beer with in 2008. They’ll count the ballots and declare a winner.

“With all of the rigors of a campaign - attack ads, phone calls, direct mail - Americans know sometimes it just comes down to who you want to have a beer with,” said Dean Plunkett Executive Director of North Carolina Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association (NCBWWA). “We hope this campaign reminds voters that at the end of the day, while issues are very important, so is friendly conversation and good-natured debate. Having a beer with someone represents getting to know someone better, and that’s what the campaign season is all about - getting to know these candidates better.”

I think the event sounds like fun (especially since I’m a member of the Saucer’s U.F.O. Club and am working on drinking 200 different beers so I can have my brass plate added to the wall). But I think Mr. Plunkett’s suggestion that “sometimes it just comes down to who you want to have a beer with” is ignorant.

Maybe it is a sad but true reality that some Americans do cast ballots based on who they’d rather sip a beer with instead of a candidate’s stance on important issues (isn’t that how some say Bush got elected?). But that shouldn’t be the reason you vote for any particular candidate. It’s our duty as Americans to research the candidates and enter the voting booth with, at a minimum, a somewhat legitimate reason for why we’re voting for someone.

I don’t care who you vote for in the upcoming presidential election. I don’t care if your vote cancels my vote out. Just please, do not base your vote on who you would rather have a beer with.

That being said, which presidential candidate would you most want to chug a lug with?