The future can only declare if cookie history will repeat itself. Family Circle readers have already decided that it is Michelle Obama who will be heading back to the White House with more than 9,000 readers weighing in. "Just 287 votes separated the two women, our smallest margin ever," say the editors at Family Circle.
The voting continues a few blocks from the White House at the Occidental Grill & Seafood, where diners are given a sample of each cookie and asked to vote on their preferred choice. Weekly tallies are shared through the restaurant's social networks. The most recent results as of Sept. 29: 56 percent for Michelle; 41 percent for Ann; 3 percent are undecided.
Other retailers are getting into the election spirit with their own spin on things: Participating 7-Eleven chain stores are running the fourth "7-Election" voting campaign by having customers select either a red (Romney) or blue (Obama) coffee cup. The chain claims that their previous results have not only closely mimicked those of the past two elections, they have accurately predicted the winners. At the moment, the blue coffee cups are carrying most of the country on the campaign's results page. (We don't know how many of those coffees were decaf.)
With such a close election, here in the newsroom we held our own cookie ballot to gain an edge on election night coverage. Since all journalists like to hide their political stripes, party affiliations were left off the ballots, er, cookies, so the votes were based on taste alone (and also size). An election monitor made sure it was one person, two cookies; and any remaining uncast ballots were eaten immediately. A few broken cookies were tossed out for not having proper IDs.
