Posted by The Sticker on January 29th, 2008
A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that a presidential election is all about the presidential candidates. It’s not. A presidential campaign is about the voters. An election is the process by which citizens get representation in the government.
Which presidential candidate gets elected determines who will get represented. The promise that presidential candidates make, that they will represent all the American people, is a sham. That’s just not how it works in practice. George W. Bush has represented corporate America, not American workers. He’s represented polluters, not environmentalists. He’s represented Creationists, not science teachers.
Supporting a progressive presidential candidate means supporting progressive constituencies as well. That’s why it’s so important to identify, on a candidate bumper sticker, exactly which constituency of support you represent. Are you with environmentalists for John Edwards? Then say so, and you’ll be supporting both John Edwards and environmentalism.
Because it’s impossible for anyone to identify all the progressive constituencies (we’re a diverse bunch), Irregular Times has developed a special method through which you can create your own 2008 election bumper sticker, using their templates to support Hillary Clinton, John Edwards or Barack Obama. You add the text to show who it is that is giving support to your candidate of choice.
You might show, for example, that your small village supports a certain presidential candidate, as in the case of this Trumansburg for Obama bumper sticker, even though Trumansburg is a town of under two thousand inhabitants. No one else is going to do that for you, guaranteed.
Locality is the luxury. Particularity is the new power. Express your individual political location even as you support your national campaign of preference.
Posted by The Sticker on January 28th, 2008
Saturday night, after the inspiring victory speech by Barack Obama, we were granted with a quest. It wasn’t quite on the scale of the search for the Holy Grail, but a reader asked us, “Can we get a bumper sticker with a profile of Obama and text ‘Out of many we are one’?”.
And so we searched, and so we found. A bumper sticker with a profile of Obama and text that reads, “Out of many we are one”.
There too, we found another Barack Obama bumper sticker featuring the national motto, which actually has this same meaning: E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, One.
It’s about time that Americans remember that the foundation of our democracy is diversity, not conformity.
Posted by The Sticker on January 27th, 2008
Knitters for Barack Obama?
Yes, it sounds a little bit strange at first. We’re used to hearing from different sorts of groups in the political sphere, like labor unions and issue-oriented organizations, not people who knit. Yet, there the message is: Knitters Vote For Barack Obama”
Then, I read the message that accompanies the bumper sticker, and it all made sense.
“Knitters know how to create a beautiful fabric from loose threads. That’s what Barack Obama does as he unites separate strands of America into one nation, diverse and yet getting along beautifully.”
That explanation brings it together, so to speak. Knitters for Obama? Yeah, I’ll buy that.
Posted by The Sticker on January 26th, 2008
The theme of tonight’s victory speech by Barack Obama was simple: Yes we can. It’s an effective short response to all the cynicism of political operatives from both the Republican and Democratic parties who are busy trying to proclaim what can and cannot be done, and who can and cannot be elected. It’s also a positive reaction to the negative slurs that have been hurled at the Obama for President campaign over the last couple of weeks.
Here’s the last part of Barack Obama’s South Carolina primary victory speech, the part where this theme becomes most clear:
“Don’t tell me we can’t change. Yes, we can change.
Yes, we can heal this nation.
Yes, we can seize our future, and as we leave this state with a new wind at our backs, and take this journey across the country we love with the message we’ve carried from the plains of Iowa to the hills of New Hampshire; from the Nevada desert to the South Carolina coast; the same message we had when we were up and when we were down - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope; and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people in three simple words:
Yes. We. Can.
Barack Obama. Yes we can.
Posted by The Sticker on January 26th, 2008
Now that we’re at the hour of the South Carolina Democratic Party primary, Obama supporters and Clinton supporters have seen their candidates kick it into high gear to try to kick each other out of the top spot and claim the prize of momentum. On each side, there has been a proliferation of different voices, claiming its own strength as a constituency for each candidate.
So we have started to see members of different professions come out in favor of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. This is being expressed in terms of bumper stickers.
For example, there is a Cab Drivers for Clinton bumper sticker, but on the other hand, there is an Artists for Obama bumper sticker. Which one one matters more? Which is the bigger constituency?
We can look to Google for the answer. A quick Google search can tell us which profession has the greater strength, at least in terms of online searches.
Let’s try “Cab Drivers” vs. “Artists”, as an example. Who’s got more Google mojo?
Cab Drivers: 533,000 results.
Artists: 494,000,000 results.
Whoah! Who would have expected such a difference? Artists kick cab drivers’ butts! Well, online they do.
Artists for Obama clearly is a force to be reckoned with more than Cab Drivers for Clinton.
Word to the wise, though… although there once was an Artists for Obama web site, it has now gone offline - just web host placeholder site. Whatever could that mean?
There never has been a Cab Drivers for Clinton web site. Opportunity, checkered ones.
Posted by The Sticker on January 17th, 2008
I was looking for a way to express my outrage at Mike Huckabee’s stated plan to amend the Constitution so that American law becomes subject to his personal vision of Christian religious law. Here’s what Mike Huckabee said, at a political rally in Warren, Michigan:
“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the Living God, and that’s what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.”
The very first amendment to the Constitution forbids the government establishment of religion, but it seems that Mike Huckabee wants to do away with that cornerstone of the Bill of Rights. He wants to build a theocracy, a United States of America of Christians, by Christians and for Christians.
Yuck. That’s the word that struck me, and then I searched for it, and found: Yuckabee.
Posted by The Sticker on January 16th, 2008
I was a but surprised at the idea of this bumper sticker, Icthyologists for Clinton, until I thought about it for a little bit.
We don’t think about the profession of Icthyology very much, but icthyologists are actually at the center of one of the most important, and most neglected, issues of our time: The ecological destruction of the Earth’s oceans. Put together overfishing with pollution and climate change, and you get an environmental disaster - it’s taking place right now, though we have trouble recognizing it, given that we live on the land.
The oceans used to team with life, and now, life is being bleached out of the oceans. Marine ecosystems are going topsy-turvy. Icthyologists, who study fish for a living, can see what’s happening to our oceans with their own eyes. In places like BlogFish, icthyologists are documenting the extent of the threat piece by piece. It makes sense that icthyologists would support a presidential candidate who seeks to end the years of environmental neglect under George W. Bush.
Icthyologists for Clinton? Sure. I’ll buy that.
Posted by The Sticker on January 8th, 2008
Hullaballoo. That’s the best word I can come up with to think of what’s happening with the Barack Obama for President campaign. With New Hampshire going his way, after the victory of Iowa, it seems that Democrats nationwide are moving their support dramatically in favor of Barack Obama.
That’s not just in Iowa and New Hampshire. It’s nationwide, as bumper sticker sales are shifting Obama’s way, regardless of the state to which the bumper stickers are being sent. Those most likely to buy a bumper sticker are those most likely to vote in the primaries still to come.
So it is that I have been in search of the mother of all Barack Obama bumper sticker sites, and I think I found it. There are bumper stickers there ranging from state-level promotion, such as South Dakota for Obama to more esoteric idealisms, such as Stubborn Dreamers for Obama.
They don’t just sell bumper stickers from one shop, but from several, so it’s kind of a jambalaya of Obama bumper stickers.
Posted by The Sticker on January 7th, 2008
It’s unavoidable to let this moment pass without comment. Barring bizarre upsets tomorrow, we are in a special moment: The time when the next President of the United States became the clear choice.
The Republicans continue to flounder. The best they can come up with is a resurrection of Ronald Reagan, as current events call for a nuclear arms race and a secret deal to send missiles to the Iranian government.
Whether you like her or not, it’s clear that the campaign of Hillary Clinton is falling apart, with Senator Clinton struggling to sound like somebody else, realizing too late that casting herself as a Washington D.C. insider too powerful to resist was not a wise strategy.
John Edwards, who was proposed as having a special bond with Iowa voters, tied for second place.
It is the hour of Barack Obama. Tomorrow is the moment for Barack Obama in New Hampshire.
Posted by The Sticker on January 3rd, 2008
Am I the only one who thinks that this week’s mainstream media hype about the possible meeting to appoint Mike Bloomberg as the Unity08 presidential candidate - without any Democratic process - is a mountain of hype? It seems that Bloomberg is pulling his media connections to whip up a frenzy from the top down rather than from the bottom up.
It’s a shocking use of blatant power to grab more blatant power, and it seems that the pundits are being given positive-only talking points to praise Mike Bloomberg to the skies, overlooking his connection to government spying programs and mass imprisonment of large numbers of completely innocent people during the 2004 Republican presidential convention.
They’re even celebrating Michael Bloomberg’s ability to purchase an election, as if it’s a luxury item for sale. As a billionaire, Bloomberg can pay for his own campaign, they say, and not have to bother with getting support from any actual voters.
That’s supposed to be a good thing?!?
This bumper sticker mocks the growing media hype around Michael Bloomberg, reminding voters that Bloomberg is of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. In 2008, the only Bloomberg for President campaign we will support is Billionaires for Bloomberg.
