(FORTUNE Magazine) – As Washington continues to scramble for reasons why last November's elections didn't play out as forecast, a poll by a New York market researcher named Mark DiMassimo has a simple explanation: Not enough Campbell Soup consumers turned out to vote.

That's one of the conclusions that can be drawn from DiMassimo's survey, which may be the first poll ever to correlate political attitudes with brand loyalty. Among other things, DiMassimo found that Campbell consumers have unusually negative attitudes about Bill Clinton, with 84% of Campbell partisans favoring his impeachment, the highest such figure for any brand covered in the study. Close behind: Oscar Mayer hot dogs (79%), Fantastik cleaner (76%), and Tide detergent (75%), whose respective consumers were apparently too busy eating, cleaning, and doing laundry to go to the polls on Election Day.

DiMassimo, whose DiMassimo Brand Advertising agency represents a variety of high-profile clients, notes that these anti-Clinton brands all have long-running traditions of consumer trust. "These are the old standbys," he says. "Who knows why people like Tide? It's just a brand, a purely iconic sort of thing. So people who are loyal to these sorts of brands are into loyalty in general"--and therefore, DiMassimo concludes, are less tolerant of a President who cheats on his wife and lies about it.

So what sorts of consumers does that leave in Clinton's corner? Burger King customers, for starters, a poll-topping 79% of whom reported having favorable attitudes toward the President. In second place, with a 67% pro-Clinton rating, was Apple Computer, a finding that makes sense to DiMassimo, who explains that the computer firm's recent history parallels Clinton's own: "It's a brand that could have died several times over, a brand that people love despite its business weaknesses." Not to mention the fact that Clinton and Apple have each been tormented by a dweeby-looking, bespectacled, power-mad nemesis.

Politics and marketing have intertwined before (remember Walter Mondale asking Gary Hart, "Where's the beef?"), and DiMassimo's survey suggests some intriguing possibilities for further entanglements. Will we one day vote the straight Procter & Gamble ticket or see brands endorsing political candidates? Probably not, says DiMassimo, noting that "politics and politicians are too unstable for anything as valuable as a brand to be attached to," but he agrees that marketers can learn a lot from politics, and particularly from the President.

"Bill Clinton is a very resilient brand," he says. "He's a brand with integrity. I don't mean he's about integrity--that would be Bill Bradley or Bob Dole. But he's a brand with integrity, in that you get what you expected to get, on a lot of levels. I think the people who elected him decided that his positives outweigh his negatives." Marketers may resist this warts-and-all conception of branding, but DiMassimo says the more traditional strategy of presenting a brand as an idealized vision of perfection may now be outdated in our more cynical, media-savvy times. "People today don't just want the Wizard of Oz," he explains. "They also want to see the man behind the curtain." Even, apparently, if he's fooling around with an intern back there.

DiMassimo may be on to something, but calls to some of the companies mentioned in his survey indicate that corporate America may not yet be ready to mix politics and marketing, at least not publicly. An Apple spokesperson, asked about DiMassimo's Apple-Clinton comparison, understandably replied with a polite but firm "No comment." Similar responses came from several of the anti-Clinton brands, including Campbell and Tide.

A few firms at least found some humor in the situation, an element usually sorely lacking in politics and marketing alike. A spokesman for Kraft macaroni and cheese (65% pro-Clinton, only 25% favoring impeachment) said, "It makes sense, because our consumers have unimpeachable taste." Ba-dum-bum! And a Burger King spokesman provided some commonsense perspective on his company's pro-Clinton rating by pointing out, "The President is an avowed fast-food fan, after all."

True enough. Anyone know if he likes soup?

PAUL LUKAS, author of Inconspicuous Consumption, obsesses over the details of consumer culture so you don't have to.