The McCain campaign issued a statement Friday about the issue, saying that "any decisions going forward will be made when John McCain wins the election and takes office, and not before." Hensley executives declined to comment.
Political analysts said they were astounded that the presumptive Republican nominee had not already addressed the issue.
"You can't run a beer company out of the White House," said Samuel L. Popkin, a political science professor at UC San Diego. "You can't run any company from the White House. McCain is leaving a live hand grenade on the table, a major embarrassment."
Public interest groups that lobby on alcohol issues say it will clearly be inappropriate for the McCain family to continue running or owning the company if McCain is elected.
"In a lot of government agencies, there is a concern about undue influence played by a regulated industry," said Chris Waldrop, director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America. "But it has not been to the point that the president's wife owns a majority share of a company that is lobbying an agency."
Public disapproval
Indeed, apart from its potential to create a conflict of interest, the mere ownership of the beer distributor could turn off some social conservatives and those who object to alcohol use.
About a third of Americans abstain from alcohol, and half either abstain or consume less than a drink a month, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
For some, abstinence -- and a disdain for the industry -- is religion-based. Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, which has more than 16 million members, expressed "total opposition to the manufacturing, advertising, distributing and consuming of alcoholic beverages" in the church's most recent resolution on the matter.
"I am sure for some individual Southern Baptists, [the McCain family's involvement in the beer business] would be a concern," said Roger S. Oldham, vice president of Southern Baptist Convention relations.
A close look at Hensley shows that the company has opposed changes that critics of the beer industry say were intended to help Americans drink responsibly.
Hensley's lobbying activities have put the company at the center of a battle that has raged between the beer and liquor industries since Prohibition ended. Under federal law, liquor is taxed more heavily than beer and must contain a label that discloses alcohol content by percentage or proof. Beer and wine containers have no such disclosure requirement, though alcohol content varies widely.
