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.

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

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’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!

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.