The Maxima's good, but Infiniti's the front-runner

According to our friends at Kelley Blue Book Marketing Research, you can tell which presidential candidate a person supports by looking at what kind of car they drive. Republican Sen. John McCain has the support of 66% of full-size pickup truck drivers; not surprisingly, perhaps, hybrid drivers are more inclined toward Democratic Sen. Barack Obama. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin scores very high with drivers of Zambonis.

Supporters of Sen. Joe Biden take the train, back and forth, from Washington to Delaware for 35 years.

As for brands, KBB reports Obama leading McCain among owners of nichy import vehicles, including Mini (70%), Subaru (61%) and Saab (59%). Does that mean 41% of Saab owners support McCain? Not necessarily. Remember there are several credible independent candidates, including Rep. Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, Bob Barr and Sha'alweed from the planet Niiik6.

Does the Nissan Maxima still have a constituency? In the early 1990s, this was the cool Nissan to have -- a tightly drafted, reasonably racy Japanese sedan noted for its affordable fun and can't-kill-it durability. Tuners and slammers loved it. Nissan called it their 4DSC, which stood for "four-door sports car" (though I always thought that was eight-door hyperbole).

In recent years, if the Maxima were a political party, it could have held its rallies in a porta-potty. The once-sporty midsizer had been rendered all but irrelevant by the slightly smaller, swifter and cheaper Nissan Altima, built from the same greasy bits and using the same 3.5-liter V6.

Yet the bigger problem for Nissan's top-shelf sedan, it seems to me, was its loss of identity. The numb-handed corporate styling, the perfunctory interiors, the middling performance. If these are the planks of your platform, you ought to be campaigning in Albania.

For 2009, the Maxima has gotten a candidate makeover -- for much less than $150,000. The big changes include a 290-horsepower version of Nissan/Infiniti's VQ-series V6 (a 35-hp bump over the 2008 model), which gushes power through a continuously variable transmission and out the front wheels in a deluge of exuberant torque steer.

This is a car that is trying really hard to be liked, a little like Hillary. Eager, aggressive, hypercompetent, the new Maxima doesn't so much sit on the fence as carom through it. It's a four-wheel pantsuit.