First it was Freedom Fries, now it's Conservative Ketchup, the condiment that pours scorn on the Kerry campaign, writes Alex Moffatt.
With the US locked in the most contentious presidential campaign in decades, the divide between Republicans and Democrats has never been greater. As if there wasn't enough to argue about already, two groups of conservative businessmen have opened a new front in the political culture war - ketchup.
Once upon a time, no American dinner table would have been complete without a bottle of Heinz. But the fact that Democratic candidate John Kerry is married to ketchup heiress Teresa Heinz, and that Mrs Heinz is campaigning aggressively on behalf of her husband, has suddenly made ketchup a politically charged issue. Hence the emergence of two conservative alternatives - W Ketchup and Bush Country Ketchup (christened "neo-condiments" by one newspaper).
W Ketchup's slogan is "You don't support Democrats. Why should your ketchup?".
Co-founder Bill Zachary (39), a New York banker, says the idea was born at a picnic last April as they poured Heinz on their fries: "We had a kind of epiphany: 'Oh my God, we're sending a little bit of money to Teresa with every bottle.' We decided that there was probably a market for a non-Heinz ketchup."
W appears to have struck a chord with conservatives. It was launched at the start of July and has so far sold in the region of 90,000 bottles, says Zachary. Almost all the sales are by mail-order through the company website, www.wketchup.com.
The "W" of the title does not refer to George W. Bush but to George Washington, whose portrait is displayed prominently on the label. "We wanted the label to contain an American icon that everyone could agree on," says Zachary. The company is non-partisan - it does not support any election campaigns but instead donates a portion of its profits to a charity that helps the children of US soldiers killed in action.
The other conservative condiment, Bush Country Ketchup, is far more politically aggressive and is aimed strictly at loyal Republicans. Its slogan is "Making sure Kerry won't ketchup to Dubya", and its cartoon logo shows an elephant (the symbol of the Republican party) balancing a giant tomato on its trunk and trampling over John Kerry.
Bush Country was founded by two old college room-mates and recent graduates, Chris Cylke and Patrick Spero. They launched their "gourmet ketchup" ("because conservatives deserve the very best") in April, well before W, but theirs is a much smaller operation and has had far less impact. So far, they have sold around 4,000 bottles, which Spero says amounts to "about three tons of ketchup - and I've got another two tons sitting in my garage". Sales are mainly through the company website, www.bushcountryketchup.com, and profits are going toward supporting local Republican groups.
Relations between Bush Country and W are not good. Spero has caused a schism by questioning W Ketchup's political credentials: "We like to call them the 'copy catsup'. We think they're very dubious. They claim to be a non-partisan ketchup - we, on the other hand, are a partisan ketchup, a 100 per cent conservative condiment. Nowhere on their website do they support President Bush. We are dedicated to his re-election."
Bill Zachary of W responds: "They have basically accused us of plagiarising their idea - but when you open the newspaper every day and see Kerry defending Heinz, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to think, 'Gee, maybe we can make a non-Heinz product'. Their product is slightly different from ours. I hope they do great."
So how have the ketchup wars affected Heinz? The company was clearly concerned about being linked so overtly to Teresa Heinz and issued a statement earlier in the year stressing that neither she nor her husband was involved in management or on the board.
"The Heinz company has nothing more to do with politics than Al Gore has to do with Gore-Tex," says Debbie Foster, Heinz's vice-president for communications. Nevertheless, Teresa Heinz still owns around 4 per cent of the company's stock.
Current worldwide Heinz ketchup sales stand at 660 million bottles a year and rising, says Foster.
The conservative competitors "have had no impact on our business. These novelty brands come and go".
Spero and Zachary can agree on one thing: both are optimistic about a Bush win in November. Spero is already planning a victory ketchup. Zachary, meanwhile, says W Ketchup's top five states for sales "are California, Texas, Florida, New York and Ohio.
"If this is a harbinger for the election, it's four more years."