A middleschool student in Oak Park, IL decided to do an experiment.  She wore a “McCain Girl” t-shirt one day and an “Obama Girl” shirt the next.  She wrote down all of the comments that she recieved on each day.  

The results were what you’d expect from middleschoolers (older folks are more likely to screw you behind the scenes).  She was treated with contempt for wearing the McCain shirt and praised for the Obama shirt.

She did this with the approval of the history teacher who used it as part of a lesson after the results were in.  From my point of view, it’s a great experiment and a great beginning to her research career (though she luckily didn’t have to go through human subjects approval).