Come November, for whom will you cast your vote in the presidential election? If you’re a beer drinker, chances are you’re voting for Senator John McCain.

Conversely, wine drinkers would prefer to cast their ballot for Senators Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. But somehow, I don’t feel so sure that these poll numbers add up. Voters that prefer beer give McCain an edge over Clinton, but are dead even when he matches up to Obama. Furthermore, the article states that “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.)”

It could be that I don’t have enough of a statistical background, or am just really out of touch with my fellow citizens, but that would mean that 41% of all Americans never drink alcohol. Supposing, for argument’s sake, that the adult population of drinking age in the United States is 225 million exactly (as I’m assuming they’re talking about all Americans age 21 or older). We’re talking about 92,250,000 teetotalers. Could that be accurate, almost half the drinking-age population never drinking alcohol in any form?

I guess these little blurbs are fun facts to throw into the seriousness of political debate, like the question, Who Do You Want to Have a Beer With? And perhaps, as someone who’s more of a beer pedant than the general populace, I look a little too in-depth at innocuous things such as this.

But further in this article from CNN is the assertion that these divergent perspectives “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.” To me, this hints the wine-snob connotation in the public eye.

Maybe I’ve been reading too much Garrett Oliver or something, but I find the historical association with wine and sophistication to be a near unshakable perception that’s completely misguided; almost as if anyone who is wealthy or college educated or both should grow out of their “beer phase.” Ergo, something expensive automatically translates into good taste. Anyone in the wine world could refute that argument almost immediately when it comes to their precious vino, much of which can be purchased at reasonable prices (yes, even for the good stuff).

I’m ranting, aren’t I? Alright then, let me distill my thoughts here. First, I’m in no way endorsing any presidential candidate, but using this political article to bolster my point. Which brings me to my second item, that even though craft brewing in America is experiencing what some may consider a renaissance, there’s still a long way to go in terms of public perception and acceptance.

As I’ve said before, beer should not become or attempt to become the “new wine,” but it does deserve a lot more respect.