Coffee and politics, Starbucks and McDonalds. Who’d ever have guessed that their customers provided grounds, pun intended, for an expensive market research report?

Although I’ve retired from my work as an independent contractor with a U.S. based market research firm, I still subscribe to a number of newsletters and I follow market reports with interest. Economic volatility, currency exchange rates and year-to-year sales numbers continue to grab my attention.

An email received today was no exception. It said, in essence, that undecided voters will be a significant factor in determining the outcome of the upcoming United States election. That’s not new information and certainly not limited to the U.S., but the fact that the data gathered for the firm’s report came specifically from coffee drinking patrons of the Golden Arches and the Seattle-based giant was interesting.

While I’m not going to name the marketing firm or their exact findings it was interesting to note that one each of the establishments attracted customers who leaned specifically to the right or left, at least when it came to their political stripes. Even more interesting, at least to me, was that each recorded the exact number of undecided voters.

Here in Canada we’re also watching with interest as voters in the province of Quebec chose their new premier. There’s lots of action in both jurisdictions and, I suspect, a lot of easy answers to hard questions being consumed along that steaming beverage.

It’s not hard to grab a mug of java and declare allegiance to some candidate but what really matters is where voters place their “X” on Election Day. The same goes for the declaration of our faith. Pompous sounding words mean nothing; it’s how we vote with our life that counts.

“Therefore as we have opportunity, let us do good to all….” (Galatians 6:10)