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A few weeks ago, the press made a big deal about the fact that John McCain had more houses than he could recall off the cuff. Newsweek has taken the next logical step towards providing the all-important TMI by finding out how many cars each candidate owns.

Barack Obama and his wife Michelle make do with just one vehicle; a 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid that replaced the senator’s un-PC but much cooler HEMI-powered Chrysler 300. McCain takes a more, ahem, liberal approach to vehicle ownership, with 13 cars and trucks to fill his seven garages. If we were wealthy and influential, we too would own a lot of cars. That would give us a tangible link to the Republican nominee, except for the fact that our collection of cars would be a hell of a lot cooler. McCain owns a 2004 Cadillac CTS as his daily driver, and it gets less interesting from there. Rounding out the Maverick’s sizable stable is a 2005 VW convertible, a 2001 Honda sedan, a 2007 Ford pickup, a 2008 Wrangler, a 2000 Lincoln, a 2001 GMC SUV, three 2000 NEV Gem electric cars, and a vintage 1960 Willys Jeep. McCain’s wife Cindy, who uses drifting as a form of therapy and sits atop a family fortune from her beer distribution company, drives a Lexus with “MS BUD” vanity plates.

Nothing in that crop of rides screams “I’m rich and powerful,” but if you have seven houses, it makes sense to have at least one vehicle at each residence. What doesn’t make sense is that all of those vehicles are about as exciting as sugar free tapioca pudding.

Not quite sure what to make of this, but on a day when America’s political eye is turned to Pennsylvania, Zipcar would like us all to know that the car-sharing company took a weeklong poll of Zipcar members in Philadelphia and found that Barack Obama was the runaway winner with 59 percent of the “vote.” Hillary Clinton came in second with 25 percent and John McCain trailed with 16 percent. Of course, the “votes” were not simple “who do you like best?” questions but instead were taken from registrations of three vehicles: Honda Hillary, Mini Cooper McCain or BMW Barack. The number of hours each of these vehicles was reserved during the week counted towards the final score. Scientific? No. Accurate? No. Fun? Sure, why not. More details after the break.

Press Release:

Zipcar Pres. Poll Results: Obama Rolling in Philly

PHILADELPHIA, April 18 /PRNewswire/ — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama rolled to victory in the “Zipcar Presidential Poll,” which closed today at noon. Zipcar, the world’s largest car sharing company, conducted the weeklong poll of its members as a way to gauge its members’ interest in the three main presidential candidates.

The final tally of the poll is:

Barack Obama (D) 59%
Hillary Clinton (D) 25%
John McCain (R) 16%

The highly anticipated Pennsylvania primary is Tuesday, April 22.

Zipcar members “voted” in the poll by reserving the Zipcar vehicle of their choice — Honda Hillary, Mini Cooper McCain or BMW Barack. The results were obtained by tabulating the hours reserved for each vehicle over the course of the seven day poll.

Zipcar has 200,000 members in 50 cities across the U.S., Canada and London, with 5,000 cars in the fleet. Zipcar offers many benefits to its members including no per-mile fee and the industry’s best mobile reservation system. The company delivers cars-on-demand — so customers can reserve cars online or with their cell phones in seconds. In addition, due to recent rise in gas prices, Zipcar has lowered the price of the Toyota Prius and is offering 20 to Philadelphia residents at $6 per hour. This move makes Zipcar the best deal in car sharing citywide.

About Zipcar

Zipcar is the world’s leading car-sharing service with more than 200,000 members and 5,000 vehicles in urban areas and college campuses throughout 25 North American states and provinces as well as in London, England. As a leader in urban transportation, Zipcar offers more than 25 makes and models of self- service vehicles by the hour or day to savvy city residents and businesses looking for an alternative to the high costs and hassles of owning a car in the city. In November 2007, Zipcar announced a merger with Washington D.C. based Flexcar, immediately expanding operations to more than 50 cities, and enabling future growth into new markets across the United States, Canada, and Europe. For more information, visit www.Zipcar.com .
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