It’s good to be a bellwether state. Yet another national publication filed an election story from Missouri this weekend. This time it’s the Wall Street Journal taking a look at the lure of the diner in election cycles.

The story is in the WSJ’s food and drink section, but it’s a very good political read. There’s a particularly interesting passage quoting Missouri Republican consultant Jeff Roe, who is advising Rep. Sam Graves in his congressional race against challenger Kay Barnes, a Democrat.

The diner can also substitute for polls. When the $700 billion federal bailout was proposed in September, campaign manager Jeff Roe didn’t know how to advise his client, Missouri’s Rep Graves. “We had no polls. No time to hold focus groups,” Mr. Roe says. So he drove down to the Corner Café here in Riverside and talked about the bailout with diners for several hours and found they were against it. Rep. Graves voted against it, too.

The quote raises a couple of interesting questions. Why is Roe, who works on the campaign, advising Graves about a congressional matter? And did Graves really vote against the bailout because diner patrons told him to?

A tip of the hat to John Combest for the link.