Obama, Giuliani top list of candidates Americans would chat with at picnic

Photo: Obama, Giuliani top list of candidates Americans would chat with at picnic

Rudy Giuliani and Barack Obama have won the picnic poll.

Asked whom they would most like to chat with at a Memorial Day holiday weekend picnic, Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, was picked by 37 percent of all those polled when pitted against three other Republicans. Arizona Sen. John McCain got 27 percent.

Obama, the Democratic senator from Illinois, was chosen by 33 percent when grouped with three other Democrats. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York was second with 24 percent.

Munching hot dogs with smaller groups of people would be former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, former Vice President Al Gore, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Among Democratic respondents alone, more people chose Clinton than Obama, though more women overall chose Obama over Clinton.

Republicans picked Giuliani over McCain by 41 percent to 26 percent.

The telephone survey of 1,166 randomly chosen people was conducted from April 25 to May 1 and has an overall margin of sampling error of 3 percentage points.

The margin of sampling error was 4.5 percentage points each for the 469 Republicans and 499 Democrats interviewed.