Suddenly, the American media are touting Barack Obama as the beer guy. There was the famous Iowa State Fair Bud Tent beer bash, where the president opened his wallet and paid for ten people to have a beer on him, while costing the owner of the tent 25 G's in lost business, as the Secret Service closed it down for security sweeps. Then there have been reports of the campaign bus carrying a stash of "secret" White House honey beer, whose recipe is being touted as a state secret bigger than the details of the Stuxnet virus intelligence operation, which one could read about in the New York Times. Boy, that Obama sure is a regular guy. If you think this is a manipulative propaganda campaign, you're correct. But it is product positioning based on market research.  You see, it turns out that independent voters are bigger beer drinkers than either Republicans or Democrats.  From taxpayer-funded NPR: "According to a survey conducted by Scarborough Research, 47 percent of independent...(Read Full Post)