FARGO -- At Quality Bakery in Fargo, Nancy Holm was emphatic about which cookies she would buy.
"I'll take five Obamas," said the Barnesville, Minn., woman, eyeing treats with edible pictures of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.
"I think Obama being elected president is going to speak so well for our world," Holm said. "I work with high school age kids and I see the open way they accept race. It's so different from my generation. ... I think (Obama) is just a man about 'now.'"
Like others at the bakery in the past month, Holm unofficially weighed in on the Nov. 4 election with her pastry purchase. Other eateries, including Fargo's Boppa's Bagels, also have put presidential politics on the menu.
Both Quality Bakery and Boppa's Bagels got involved in their respective projects through national groups, which track the results from eateries nationwide -- Boppa's Bagels with Fork Over Your Vote, and Quality Bakery with the Retail Bakers of America.
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As of Monday at Quality Bakery, Sen. John McCain cookies led Obama 258-175.
Quality Bakery owner Pete Fendt said he thinks his store's clientele, which leans to the right politically, has given McCain the edge.
"Some people are buying them just for the opposite -- so you can eat the opponent," he said.
At Boppa's, after buying a sandwich, customers cast a red jellybean for McCain or a blue jellybean for Obama. Obama is leading the jellybean vote 57 percent to McCain's 43 percent.
The project is a fun way to get people involved in the election, said Gary Porter, co-owner of Boppa's Bagels and former North Dakota Republican state representative and party chairman.
"Obviously as a Republican, it's kind of embarrassing that Obama has a landslide lead in our store," Porter said. He said, though, that the project is not biased toward either Obama or McCain.
Most Quality Bakery customers think the cookies are fun, Fendt said.
But, bakery secretary Bev Rognlie said, "If two of them from the opposite party are in here at the same time, oh ho, they go back and forth."
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Nationally, McCain leads the fun poll Boppa's Bagels is involved in, and Obama leads the poll Quality Bakery is involved in.
The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead and the Herald are Forum Communications Co. newspapers.
