"Four more beers!"

As Obama and his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, battle for hearts and votes, Romney is trying to show that he shares their values of family, faith and hard work. He talks of marrying his high school sweetheart, supporting his wife through her battle with multiple sclerosis, raising his five boys and enjoying his grandchildren. Obama is taking it a step further by trying to seem an everyman himself. He talks of being raised by a single mom, his late father-in-law’s working-class career, his own family’s financial struggles in their early years.

And he talks about beer.

There is good reason to presume that beer is a way for Obama to connect with voters. It presents a contrast with Romney, who doesn’t drink (and who was ordering vanilla ice cream in a 1950s-style parlor in Ohio when Obama was buying beers at the fair). Consumer research shows that beer is most popular with the very voters that Obama and Romney are fighting over: middle-America independents.