David Wasserman, a political writer for The Cook Report, recently put together an engaging and humorous piece about the cultural connections shared by Republicans and, on the other side, by Democrats.
His barometer? Cracker Barrel restaurants and health food stores bearing the Whole Foods name.
Who would have thought that “we are what we eat” applies to our partisan affiliations too?
Wasserman can actually track and predict the political affiliations of nearly any county in America based solely on one factor: Do they have a Cracker Barrel Old Country Store in the area? Or do they have a Whole Foods?
 Photo/nlpc.org
(For the uninitiated, Cracker Barrel features a country music atmosphere and a menu favorite of biscuits smothered in gravy. Whole Foods sells a quart of organic pomegranate juice for $10.99 and the household products are rated on an eco-friendly scale. Wasserman’s reporting also turned up this observation: lots of pickup trucks in the Cracker Barrel parking lots; several Toyota Prius models outside Whole Foods.)
“In 2008,” Wasserman wrote, “candidate Barack Obama carried 81 percent of counties with a Whole Foods and just 36 percent of counties with a Cracker Barrel — a ‘record’ 45-point gap. In 2000, vice president Al Gore won 58 percent of counties now containing a Whole Foods and 26 percent of those now boasting a Cracker Barrel, a 32-point difference. And in 1992, Gov. Bill Clinton won 60 percent of Whole Foods counties and 40 percent of Cracker Barrel counties — a mere 20-point margin.”
This clever method of connecting cuisine with partisan politics reflects a larger trend, with conservative Republicans wanting to live near other down-home Republicans, and Democrats adhering to the trendy neighborhoods that attract like-minded liberals. The result is a rapid rise in the unpersuadables, living in counties that are solid Red, or solid Blue.
“This growing divide signals shifts in the electorate,” Wasserman continued. “In the 2008 primary, Obama was able to overcome Hillary Rodham Clinton partly because the Democratic Party had become more Whole Foods than Cracker Barrel. While Clinton swept rural, older, lower-income Cracker Barrel counties such as Belmont, Ohio, and Knox, Ky., Obama dominated younger, higher-income, higher-educated Whole Foods enclaves including Multnomah, Ore., Portland’s county, and Charlottesville, Va.
“Ten years earlier, Hillary Clinton’s coalition might have been enough to bury Obama, but the party’s metamorphosis sunk the former first lady. In the 2010 midterm elections, the culinary divide was even more apparent: Eighty-two percent of congressional districts that flipped from Democratic to Republican were home to a Cracker Barrel, and just 20 percent of these districts had a Whole Foods.”
In 2012, one Democratic pollster quoted in the story says that the key voters will be upwardly mobile, socially conscious “Target voters” who are “happy to be out of the aisles of Wal-Mart” – infamous for its poor treatment of workers and heavy appetite for Chinese products – and “fear the middle class slipping away.”

The increasingly hot pursuit of independent voters who will likely decide the 2012 election could mean Republican and Democratic operatives crossing paths in the few suburban communities where Whole Foods and Cracker Barrel co-exist. One such place is Plymouth Meeting, Penn., a Philadelphia suburb.
Here’s Wasserman’s conclusion: “Who lives there? According to Nielsen’s market analysis of this zip code, it’s ‘Domestic Duos’: middle-income, older, married couples who shop at Kohl’s to save cash and drive moderately priced Chevy Impalas, but who also have disposable income to sail Norwegian Cruise Line. Next year, both parties will spend millions to win this persuadable segment of voters — and bridge the organic-nostalgic divide. But as that divide widens, they (party strategists) may find that the persuadable slice of the electorate is narrower than ever.”
Btw: Macomb County has one Cracker Barrel, in Roseville, and no Whole Foods establishments. Oakland County has two Whole Foods stores, in West Bloomfield Township and Troy, but no Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores.
However, in keeping with its maverick ways, Macomb’s Cracker Barrel status didn’t stop Obama from carrying the county by a wide margin in the 2008 election. The trend held, though, with Obama as the ’08 Oakland County winner.
Wasserman’s story was apparently published by several papers. You can click onto The Miami Herald’s reprinting of the story here.

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