Driving Political Opinion

John McCain golf ball? An Obama sweater for your dog? Campaign merchandise has been a part of campaigning since 1840 when William Harrison adopted the log cabin as his logo. Hundreds of items with the log cabin design – such as the milk pitcher with the log cabin and the hard cider barrel – were used to market the candidate even though he had not been born in a log cabin. But the image helped to “sell” him to America.

Today campaign merchandise is often not officially sponsored by or endorsed by the candidate, but is created and distributed by merchandisers who may not support the candidate but are business people looking to make a profit by selling something to someone willing to buy.

campaigning since 1840 when William Harrison adopted the log cabin as his logo. Hundreds of items with the log cabin design – such as the milk pitcher with the log cabin and the hard cider barrel – were used to market the candidate even though he had not been born in a log cabin. But the image helped to “sell” him to America.

In 2008 you can wear your candiate on your feet; he can support you while you are being athletic; you can select him at the 7-11 in a blue cup or a red one, he can carry water for you in a Nalgeen bottle; or he charm your ears with more than his political rhetoric.

Not only can you find a piece of campaign merchadise emblazoned with your candidate’s name and face on it, buy you can open your wallet and shell out money to dress your child in the candidate of your choices as well.

The Associated Press is reporting this afternoon that the McCain campaign worker in Pennsylvaniawho claimed she was robbed, pinned to the ground and had her face mutilated because of her McCain bumper sticker lied to police. Ashely Todd is being charged with filing a false report. A police spokesperson said that due to concerns over the woman’s mental health, they are consulting with the Allegheny County District Attorney. As of 3 p.m. EST Todd remained in custody awaiting arraignment.

Ashely Todd, a 20-year-old McCain volunteer from College Station, Texas was mugged in suburban Pittsburg, then attacked and mutilated by her assailant over the McCain-Palin bumper sticker on Todd’s car.

A spokesperson for the Pittsburgh police said the victim was robbed at knife point just before 9 p.m. Wednesday night at an ATM machine outside of a Citizens Bank. The assailant used a knife to carve the letter “B” into Todd’s right cheek.

Todd had been working at a McCain campaign phone bank before being attacked.

In a separate incident, a Clearwater Florida doctor reported that his 2006 Lexus had been vandalized on Oct. 18 while parked on a city street. Owner Frank Armstrong believes his car was targeted because of two bumper stickers, one reading McCain-Palin, the other”Nobama.” The body of Armstrong’s car was burned in several spots by a cigarette, the American flag was burned on the hood, and obscenities and the initials “KKK” were scratched into the paint. Damage to the car was estimated at $4,500.

The home of a Central Florida Republican headquarters manager was shot at on Wednesday. Rod Coverely of Longwood, told police he attributes the vandalism to his two yard signs supporting Sen. John McCain. Coverely’s home sustained damage to windows.The Florida Attorney General is investigating the matter along with reports of theft and vandalism to political yard signs.

There have also been reports of Obama signs being burned in St. Peters, MO, Boca Raton, FL, Irondequoit, NY, Altedena, CA, and Allegan County, MI,and McCain signs being burned in Putnam County, IN, Albemarle County, VA, and Portland, OR.

A van for a wine importer in Minneapolis that had McCain signs was spray painted with pro-Obama messages and Obama signs were duct-taped to the vehicle.  

Can you wash and dry your candidate?

T-shirts emblazoned with messages about one’s candidate of choice are akin to political bumper stickers, they’re just a bit more personal and, literally, closer to one’s heart.

Like blue jeans, T-shirts are ubiquitous as a form of modern dress for people of all ages and in all socio-economic groups. The political T-shirt is one more way a voter can show – or embody – his or her engagement in the political process while advertisinga candidate to others.

T-shirts with images of Senator Barack Obama have gone beyond the run of the mill.Obama has become an iconic international celebrity attracting the attention ofgraphicartists and fashion designers. While most political T-shirts are in the “run of the mill” category sporting a candidate’s name and logo, a few of this years T’s are anything but ordinary.

Not only can voters purchase official campaign merchandise from candiates’ webstores, they can create their ownwearable body artfrom a variety of on-line companies that specialize in do-it-yourself merchandise. This generated lots of up-to the minute T-shirts that capture the immediacy of the campaign, such as the Joe the Plumber phenomena, or capitalizing on when McCain referred to Obama inthe last presidential debateas “that one.”

Before you head off to the polls on electio day wearing the candidate of your choice blazoned across your chest, check your local election laws. Some states prohibit wearing any type of campaign paraphernalia in the voting zone.

Ever since Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was named the GOP’s VP pick, she has been a lightening rod. She electrified the Republican base with her acceptance speech at the RNC in St. Paul and the McCain-Palin ticket saw a significant bump as a result in the polls. At the same time she was electrifying the right, she was horrifying the left who found her qualifications for the job wanting.

After a whirlwind tour of campaign stops with Senator John McCain, her rising star began to flicker in the public’s eye as she painfully stumbled through two national media interviews. This only intensified the left’s criticism that she was not up to being the VP, let alone being a heartbeat away from the presidency. Between her joke at the convention about how lipstick is the only differnce between a pit bull and a hockey mom and an remark by Senator Barack Obama “that you put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig,” she has been among the top media stories over the past 30 days.

Following the interviews, national polls began to swing in the direction of the Obama-Biden ticket, opening a 6 point lead. At the same time, the President, Congress, Wall Street and Main Street came face-to-face with a looming financial crisis that also influenced national polling.

On Thursday evening, October 2, Governor Palin debated Democrat VP contender Senator Joe Biden. It was the first and only VP debate before the November 4, 2008 election. Initial polling seems to be split on which candidate “won” the debate — neither made any major blunders— but what media critics and pundits seem to agree on is that Sarah Palin had a much better showing than expected based on her prior interviews on ABC with Charles Gibson and CBS with Katie Couric. Some have said that Palin t”ook the course as a pass/fail and Biden took it for a grade.”

Daily presidential tracking polls over the next few days will reveal whether the debate had much affect on voters. As we wait out the 31 days until the election there are still three more debates scheduled between Senator Barack Obama and Senator McCain which will also influence the polls, for those of us who wait with baited breath for our daily political fix on such things.

One thing is for certain, someone who generates as much media attention as Senator McCain’s vice presidential choice has done is certain to be the target of a lot of negative publicity. That’s part of the game of politics. In the five weeks since Sarah Palin has become a nationally— and internationally— recognized celebrity, she has become a poster child as well as a  bumper-sticker-baby of both ridicule for those who do not like her and admiration for those who do. In a few short weeks she will either home to Alaska or she will move on to Washington, D.C. and be “a heartbeat” away from the presidency.

No doubt about it, political campaigns bring out the good, the bad and the ugly in bumper stickers as well as candidates. This year’s national presidential race is no exception. Here is a sampling of some of the meanest, ugliest, unkindest bumper stickers I’ve seen.

Sorry for the pun, it couldn’t be helped. Since John McCain named Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, the barrage of media coverage about this conservative, pro-life mother-of-five with an up-do and high heels has made her an overnight political star. The woman some call “Sarah Baracuda” has splashed onto the national campaign scene igniting a flurry of support and wrath.

Bumper stickers supporting her partnership with Senator McCain are taking on a personality of thier own. Some say she is upstaging the man on the top of the ticket. Many of the bumper stickers and car magnets have a definite pink-lipstick feminine twist.

Senator John McCain has tapped Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate to the surprise of many.

It’s party time. The Democrat National Convention kicked off tonight in Denver. The Republican National Convention will begin next week in St. Paul. Essentially these events are coronation events where the presumptive nominees of each party will be formally ratified to go forward in the final rituals of the presidential election process. Each convention is essentially a well-orchestrated four-day television commercial for each party. Pundants will opine and delegates will cheer for their candidate and for their state. Red, white and blue confetti and balloons will punctuate the speeches. The images that voters get over the next two weeks will carry them forth to election as they weigh and measure the candidates. Some of the images will be positive, many will be negative.

Earlier this year, graphic artist Shepard Fairey created a series of iconic posters of Barack Obama. Reminiscent of 1930s-era propaganda posters, these are edgy, hip and have a “wow” factor unlike traditional campaign artwork.  Fairey’s work is potent and poignant.

It’s been said that imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Well, Fairey’s posters have been imitated, put the images aren’t necessarily flattering.

This weekend is the eve of the Democrat National Convention and the media is in frenzy about who Sen. Barack Obama will select as his vice presidential running mate, an announcement expected in the next 24 hours. KSBW-TV, the NBC affiliate in Salina, California is reporting this afternoon that Indiana Senator Evan Bayh will be the veep choice. And how do they know? Their sources are telling them that Gill Studios in Lenexa, Kansas is printing Obama-Bayh bumper stickers! Sources at Gill Studio will neither confirm nor deny the information.

A red, white and blue herring??

The visual images of the presidential candidates, from photographs to logos and iconic drawings, are playing an important role in this year’s campaign, particularly so for Barack Obama. Beginning with his iconic O which appears as a frame around a new horizon in both his last name and in his key word “HOPE,” the branding and marketing of the candidates has reached new levels of sophistication by recognizing the importance of design in political communication.

In May, Jonathan V. Last of the Weekly Standard wrote a story about how pop artists and designers have portrayed Obama as everything from a saint bathed in beatific light to an idealized Chairman Mao or Bolshevik leader. The McCain visuals appear more as knock-offs or responses to the Obama iconography.Some of the artwork is amazing. Some of it is just for fun, and some of it takes the candidate’s own icon and twists it as against the candidate, as in the case of the Obama bumperstickers featuring “HYPE” and “NOPE” instead of “HOPE.”

On a recent road trip, I found numerous funny, bittersweet, or just bitter or idiotic political bumper stickers a welcome distraction from $4.50 gas, but also thought I should remind everybody who has anything to do with creating or displaying news content why they shouldn’t display their own political views, on cars or elsewhere, in this campaign season or afterward.

The following two provisions of our Ethical Journalism policy apply:

Journalists have no place on the playing fields of politics. Staff members are entitled to vote, but they must do nothing that might raise questions about their professional neutrality or that of The Times. In particular, they may not campaign for, demonstrate for, or endorse candidates, ballot causes or efforts to enact legislation. They may not wear campaign buttons or themselves display any other insignia of partisan politics. They should recognize that a bumper sticker on the family car or a campaign sign on the lawn may be misread as theirs, no matter who in their household actually placed the sticker or the sign.

Staff members may not themselves give money to, or raise money for, any political candidate or election cause. Given the ease of Internet access to public records of campaign contributors, any political giving by a Times staff member would carry a great risk of feeding a false impression that the paper is taking sides.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Craig Whitney

Six months after the Iowa Caucuses, the 2008 Presidential race has been narrowed to Sen. John McCain as the presumptive Republican candidate and Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democrat candidate.

Iowa strutted proudly last night as more than 354,000 people participated in the 2008 Iowa Caucuses (more than 10 percent of the state’s population and more than 15 percent of all registered voters). It seemed as if there were as many members of the media in town for the event. Today Iowa is a bit quieter (and a bit warmer as caucus temps were in the ‘20s around the state last night).

Mike Huckabee won the Republican race, with 32 percent of the votes over lead rival Mitt Romney who fell 9 points behind despite outspending Huckabee more than 15-1. Barack Obama not only won the Democrat race, with 38 percent of the vote, but the front runner, Hillary Clinton, came in third behind John Edwards.

Huckabee’s win is seen as a major upset among GOP insiders and neo-con Republicans but his populist appeal resonated with Iowa voters. Likewise, Obama’s win threatens the established Clinton machine. Both winners along with the runner-ups left the state for New Hampshire were they are already campaigning this morning just four days out from Tuesday’s primary.

In the wake of their departure, snow and ice covered Iowa cars are wearing bumper stickers of both the winners and losers, a sign of political engagement in our nation’s free and democratic election process.

The bumper sticker may not necessarily be the best form of advertisement to convince others to support a candidate. It may be hard to measure how many people see a particular sticker, read it, contemplate it, and are persuaded by it to support a candidate. But what the bumper sticker does is to help concretize a voter’s decision to support a candidate days, weeks or months in advance of Election Day.

Research on decision making in elections shows that often about a third of the voters who will go to the polls make their minds up early, a third are “middle” deciders and a third are late deciders. The sooner a candidate can secure the support of voters, the better chance they may have of not just retaining that voter but of then focusing on efforts to influence undecided voters.

There can be a synergetic effect with a charismatic candidate who attracts voters early. These supporters can have a direct influence on others. Including the undecided and independent voter. The yard sign, bumper sticker or lapel button are ways for an early or middle decider to participate in the campaign process by engaging others in conversation and thought. But perhaps, most importantly, voters who publically declare their support in advance of the election are more likely to stick with their candidate and in doing so may bring others along with them.

Iowa is a good laboratory in which to study the political process. Geographically it is a small (just under 56,000 square miles), rectangle-shaped state that can easily be traversed from east to west (307 miles) in less than five hours and from north to south (219 miles) in less than four. Political candidates can access a large percentage of the Iowa electorate (there are 3 million people and 2 million registered voters) and the electorate can get to know the politicians up close and personal in a way that could not occur in bigger states with larger populations.

Iowa’s population is well-educated (86 percent of Iowans 25 and older are high school graduates; 21.2 percent have a bachelor or higher degree), the state unemployment rate is low, and the median household income is around $42,000. The state does not have a history of a corrupt political machine nor has it been known to have ties to organized crime.

Some people say that Iowa lacks the racial diversity (91 percent white) to represent the entire US population and thus the state should not have such an important role in Presidential politics. No state is completely representative of all things American, and race, although very important, should not be something that ever excludes one group of citizens from the political process. Iowa plays an important role in winnowing down the slate of contenders. Iowans are plain spoken, hard-working people. We weed out the weaker candidates. Those who run and survive the gauntlet here leave as winners who have many campaign trials yet to come.

Some argue that the process should be truncated to 30, 60 or 90 days. To really get to know candidates in all their vicissitudes – to see them in the good, the bad and the ugly – the testing process needs to take place over a long-enough period of time so voters can actually come to know the candidates and compare them. Truly few other states would really want this process dropped into their laps.

The idea of rotating the caucuses, allowing states to compete in some type of lottery to “win” the right to conduct the caucuses belies an ignorance of the role of the caucuses. The very reason the Iowa caucuses developed over the past 25 years to be what they are today is because of the states’ size and political civility, because of the access candidates have to voters and the level of engagement Iowa voters’ have in the process, and because the national press has chosen to cover the process as extensively as it does and therefore plays an enormous role in agenda setting. That would happen no matter where the first-in-the-nation caucus process took place, but the level of involvement of the citizens might be far less due to geography and size of the population in other states.

Last night as I left a post-caucus rally for one of Iowa’s winners, I talked with members of the media (as a journalism grad student I am far more star-struck by the media folks than the candidates!) who said the Iowa Caucus process is alive and well and that 2012 will be bigger and better yet. There are 3 years, 11 months and 30 days (1461 days) between January 3, 2008 and New Year’s Day 20012 – I can’t wait!

A few weeks ago Marlene Buckley posted a question: who uses the bumper sticker more, Democrats or Republicans? I’ve been keeping watch here in Iowa as we get closer to the 2008 Iowa Caucuses to see if there are visible trends among the many contenders. It appears that more cars are sporting Democrat candidate bumper stickers, at least in the Central Iowa area which often votes more blue than red. It also seems in my neighborhood on the west-side of Des Moines that there are more Democrat candidate yard signs.

Historically, the lower-economic quintiles have supported Democrat candidates and the upper-economic quintiles have supported Republican candidates. A 2005 study by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press provides a breakdown of voting trends by six demographic characteristics. Race is the most influential demographic driving party affiliation followed by gender, church attendance, and income.

Looking at a variety of social and economic influences over the past century, the study found that the “‘Republicans are rich/Democrats are poor’ stereotype is much more true now – at least at the extremes of the income curve – than it was a half century ago.”

If you have less money, you are more likely to drive an older model car than someone who has more money. A few researchers who have done some quantifiable research on the number of cars with bumper stickers have noted that older cars that have less value are more likely to have one or more bumper stickers than newer, more expensive and luxury model cars. And cars with stickers, especially multiple stickers, often support Democrat candidates and causes that would be considered liberal.

I still see an amazing amount of W-04 stickers on cars, and many of these are on SUVs, mini-vans, and sedans, more so than on economy or older model cars. I am going to conduct some field research this week, looking at cars in various locations here in Central Iowa to see what I can learn about bumper stickers on Iowa cars the week before the Iowa Caucuses. I want to look at cars in the parking lots of a few area malls, a few city and suburban churches this weekend, and I will also count bumper stickers in the parking lot at my caucus precinct.

Iowa Public Radio did an interview about the bumper sticker project. It’s been fun to see the media’s interest in the research. Today WOI-TV did an interview which aired during the 6 p.m. news. On the 28th, WOI-Radio has an interview also scheduled. Also, the Bumper-2-Bumper exhibit was transfered to the showroom of Dewey Ford, a metro-area Ford dealership for display through the 2008 Iowa Caucuses. That seems only fitting as both the front and rear bumpers are Ford pick-up bumpers and since the first cars with bumpers were Ford Model As.

The online edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education has posted a blog entry on the bumper sticker project. The Chronicle is the No. 1 source of news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty members, administrators and people in academe. According to their website, The Chronicle’s audited Web-site traffic is routinely more than 12 million pages a month, seen by more than one million unique visitors. Pretty cool!

A study published in 1992 by Charles Case in the Journal of Popular Culture, that calls the bumper sticker “a ubiquitous part of modern mobile American society,” observed that everyone sees “tens of thousands” of these messages annually. With a research team, Case set out to assess what the predominant messages are that people adhere to their cars.

Looking at cars in Riverside, California, the researchers found that 39 percent of the 2,160 cars they observed displayed one or more messages. The most common form was a window decal followed by a personal or “vanity” license plate. The classic bumper sticker came in third. Other forms of personalized car communication included personalized license plate frames and “silly yellow signs” among other things.

The signs were grouped into six categories: ideological/political expression/public service expression, philosophical expressions, commercial products, self-identity expressions, and other. The three leading categories were self-identity stickers (which included group, institutional/sports and school affiliation stickers), commercial stickers (such as radio station bumper stickers), and “other” (such as Garfield and other characters). The category of Ideological/Political bumper stickers ranked fifth.

A study by Drs. Kelli Lammie and Lee Humphreys about how people express their political and social views in a consumerist society had some similar findings. While doctoral candidates at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, Lammie and Humphreys were interested in studying how people express political and social views in our consumer society, and how the bumper sticker is part of that expression. They looked at the types of vehicles that sport bumper stickers, where bumper stickers are predominately placed on cars, and what people think about the bumper stickers they see on cars of other motorists.

Looking at almost 1000 cars in and around Philadelphia and on the New Jersey turnpike in the fall of 2003, the study found that 20 percent of all vehicles had one or more stickers. Ranked on a three point scale of good, moderate and old, the researchers judged that 35 percent of the cars studied were in good condition, 27 percent were in moderate condition, and 36 percent were old or in poor condition. The older the car, the more stickers it typically had, and this finding was statistically significant (p< .001). The most popular category or type of sticker was patriotic or pro-USA sticker. Lammie and Humprheys noted that their study was done post-9/11, a time when patriotic feelings were high because of the attacks on America in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.

They also found that “affiliation” stickers, such as ones alma mater or the triple-A sticker of the American Automobile Association, were highly common. Philosophical, religious, and advertising stickers were also frequently seen. Bumper stickers for presidential candidates represented only .05 percent of all the stickers they observed. The researchers quoted a man who was with the Howard Dean for President organizing committee saying, “ It doesn’t matter how many stickers you put up, it’s not going to make a difference. We should take all that money from the bumper stickers and put it towards a direct mailing. That’s more effective.”

The real effectiveness of the bumper sticker

In terms of effectiveness, that may not be the purpose of the bumper sticker. The bumper sticker may play less of a role in influencing others about a candidate. The bumper sticker may, instead, be an important symbol of the action or intended action of the person who places the sticker on his or her car. The sticker is a public announcement to both people who know you and those you don’t know about your intentions to support a candidate in the voting booth. It may also indicate financial support of the candidate’s campaign as well as participation as a field volunteer or community organizer. Putting a bumper sticker on one’s car is an action of concretizing one’s decision to stand up in support of a candidate. It is also a strong statement of one’s engagement in the political process.

Case concluded his research on bumper stickers by stating: “These expressions have some similarity to graffiti in being current, spontaneous expressions of individuals in an environment. Signs displayed from vehicles differ in that they are not anonymous and clandestine like graffiti, but rather are intimately associated with individuals through one of their most important possessions. Thus, for those interested in examining the cultural environment, bumper stickers and car signs offer insights into what is important to “common folks,” For ordinary citizens, car signs and bumper stickers offer at least some opportunity for self-expression and input into an environment otherwise dominated by mass-mediated symbols and ideas.”

_________

Case, C. (1992). Bumper Stickers and car signs ideology and identity. Journal of Popular Culture, 26, 107-119.

Lammie, K. and Humphreys, L. (2004). “No votes for turncoats”: An analysis of bumper stickers at public discourse. Unpublished paper presented at the 2004 annual meeting of the National Communication Association, November 11-14, Chicago, Illinois.