“I thought McCain needed a boost,” she said. “There are a lot of limousine liberals out there.”  Ms. Maynard, who said she is an independent, bought the cups for a small gathering in honor of a houseguest, Moorhead C. Kennedy Jr., who was one of the Americans taken hostage in Iran during the 1979 revolution.  She also bought a few Obama 2008 cups because she knew some of the Illinois senator’s supporters would be in attendance. But “no Hillary cups,” she said. “It’s not an option in my house.”  Kevin White, the publisher of Real Simple magazine, stopped in last Saturday to buy cups for a cocktail party at his weekend home near Three Mile Harbor. “I look forward to coming here and seeing who is ahead,” he said. “The pulse is here.”  AT the party that night, Lawrence Rich, a vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman Realty, was sipping Diet Pepsi from a Hillary 2008 cup, while his partner, Seymour Levy, a fashion designer, sipped merlot out of a similar cup. He admitted that his sympathies lie with Mr. Obama but, nodding toward Mr. Rich, he said, “Because I have to wake up with him, I’m going with Hillary.”  The host was drinking what he called a Rose Kennedy cocktail — vodka, club soda and a splash of cranberry juice — from an Obama cup. No one at this party picked up a McCain cup. The final tally: six for Clinton, four for Obama.  Back at the Monogram Shop, politics provided the backdrop conversation through the weekend as shoppers browsed, among other merchandise, a wall of roll-neck sweaters for babies. The sample monogrammed names are: Alexa, Sam, Reece, Preston and Gianni.  Because not every shopper has the time or, perhaps, the imagination to customize merchandise cleverly, the shop has some premade cleverness for sale. A set of cocktail napkins reads, “Unattended children will be given a cup of espresso and a free puppy.” Another set reads, “Have you seen my contractor?”  “Everyone has problems with their contractor,” said Constance Hoagland, who helps around the shop.  On Saturday afternoon, Jean Vanderbilt, the third wife of the late Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, dropped in to invite Valerie Smith, an owner of the shop and Ms. Hoagland’s daughter, to a Kentucky Derby party. Ms. Vanderbilt said she had sent some Obama cups to her friends Benjamin M. Rosen, a founder of Compaq computer, and his wife, Donna Rosen. “This is strong Obama country,” Ms. Vanderbilt said.  There are some exceptions. “If I buy my son Obama, he would throw it out the window,” Anne Easton, a real estate agent, said to Ms. Smith. “He’s not for anyone but he’s definitely not liberal.”  She settled on buying a tooth fairy pillow for a granddaughter. The politics of the child, six months old, are unclear. “We don’t know yet,” Ms. Easton said. “But her dad is really conservative.”  Ms. Smith said she never ordered any Biden, Dodd or Huckabee cups this year. “Giuliani came in misspelled,” she said, “so I never put them out.”  Jordan Saunders, who is involved in many charitable causes and who favors Republicans, said, “What I like about the cups is two things.” The first is that they stir debate at parties, where she likes to give cups with Democrats’ names to Republicans, and Republican cups to Democrats. The second thing: “My grandchildren put crayons in them and take them to the beach to collect sea glass.”  This is the second election cycle in which the cup count has riveted Hamptonites. Back in the summer of 2004, Ms. Smith carried Bush-Cheney and Kerry-Edwards cups. After customers began asking which sold better, she posted the sales figures. One day that summer, Chelsea Clinton strolled into the Monogram Shop and asked to buy a cup, Ms. Smith recalled.  “Which one?” Ms. Smith asked.  “Kerry, please,” Chelsea Clinton replied, deadpan.  At the end of August that year, 2,940 cups emblazoned with Kerry-Edwards had been sold, and 1,344 for Bush-Cheney, a huge Democratic lead. But in September and October, the Kerry-Edwards ticket netted 806 cups and Bush-Cheney sold 706, a notable narrowing for an area considered a Democratic stronghold.  The trend echoed what was happening in the rest of the country. The Kerry ticket led in the cup count come the morning of Election Day — but not by enough, it is thought around East Hampton, to have left anybody feeling secure about the Democrats’ chances of winning the White House. “I believe the cups know the truth,” Ms. Smith said.  In the last week, as calls for Mrs. Clinton to drop out of the race have intensified, the Obama cup lead has grown, with the Illinois senator gaining 10 since Monday and Mrs. Clinton just 1. Mr. McCain has held steady at 89.  Renee Shafransky, a psychotherapist and former theater figure who bought an Obama cup last Sunday, said she would drink from it while watching primary results. “I am going to fill it with some libation and toast him no matter what happens,” she said.  “And I am going to hope the lady was telling the truth when she said it was dishwasher-safe.”  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page ST1 of the New York edition with the headline: Hamptons Poll: Take a Sip, Cast Your Vote. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Politics and the fashionable beach life intersect in an unlikely way at the Monogram Shop in East Hampton.