Progressive Bumper Sticker

Kathleen Sebelius the New FrontRunner for Obama VP

Last week, after John Edwards brought announced his unexpected endorsement of Barack Obama for President, the Obama-Edwards presidential ticket was the hot new idea in the 2008 campaign. Everybody was talking about what a great Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards would make. But, at the end of the week, John Edwards made another announcement: He does not want to be Barack Obama’s Vice President (although he didn’t rule out being Attorney General).

Now, another Vice Presidential candidate has risen to the top, becoming the consensus frontrunner to join Barack Obama on the 2008 White House ticket: Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius. Governor Sebelius has gained attention for her strong defiance of right wing activists in Kansas who have tried to shove through legislation to build new dirty coal-fired power plants. Sebelius has vetoed every coal bill they have sent her way.

Barack Obama and Sebelius share Kansas roots, and the Midwestern votes that Sebelius would bring in could wrap up the Electoral College for the Democratic campaign. If Al Gore of John Kerry had just been a bit stronger in the Midwest, after all, George W. Bush would have spent years ruining businesses instead of ruining America.

Grab this oval Obama/Sebelius 2008 campaign bumper sticker to encourage Barack Obama to choose Kathleen Sebelius for his vice presidential running mate in 2008.

Barack Obama and John Edwards Run for White House Together?

Last night, John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama for President. This endorsement had long been delayed, for the obvious reason that John Edwards was the most sought-after endorsement of the long 2008 Democratic primary season. The endorsement wrests the news cycle out of the hands of Hillary Clinton’. Even more important, however, are the 19 pledged delegates that John Edwards brings along with him. Edwards is practically his own state, politically speaking, and his endorsement wraps up the nomination for Obama.

Will it end there? Will John Edwards fade off into the background now? Don’t bet on it.

After seeing the crowd’s enthusiasm for John Edwards last night, combined with the tidal surge of support for Obama, I’d say that an Obama-Edwards ticket is more likely than ever.

John Edwards fits with Barack Obama, politically and biographically. Both come from modest economic backgrounds, and understand political issues from the perspective of working Americans. Both have rejected negative campaigning and lobbyist influence as well, and that will be a strong point in opposition to John McCain, who has filled his Senate office and his campaign staff with corporate lobbyists. Edwards and Obama also both represent an idealistic vision of a better American future, not a desperate clinging to the past.

If you’ve caught me being enthusiastic about the idea, well, I’ll admit it. Isn’t it time that Americans begin to feel a sense of optimism again? That’s what the Barack Obama campaign is about, really - overcoming fear with hope. With John Edwards on Obama’s team, that hope is all the more believable.

That’s the idea that’s behind this Obama-Edwards bumper sticker - and I’ll add on a note about the Obama Edwards campaign tshirt as well: It’s made in the USA, not in some overseas sweatshop factory that uses outsourced labor to make big profits for some corporate executives on the backs of child labor. This t-shirt fits the moral vision of the Obama Edwards campaign.

Maybe this one in particular is not for you - but please, make sure that when you do buy Obama or Obama-Edwards campaign shirts, they’re made in the USA. Don’t mix hope with despair.

Michigan For Obama - To Break The Deadlock

Hillary Clinton won the primary in West Virginia last night, relying on racist sentiment to do so. This primary showed how ugly the Clinton campaign is willing to get in order to win - even though it’s almost impossible for Clinton to actually get the Democratic nomination at this point.

One of the points of denial Hillary Clinton supporters are clinging to is the desperate hope that somehow, in spite of the rules, the Michigan election in which Barack Obama did not even run as a candidate, would be counted, and Michigan’s delegates would be seated at the Democratic presidential convention.

The truth is that, even if that did happen, Hillary Clinton would lose the nomination. This is getting pathetic.

Michigan Democrats can take action to help end the nightmare. They can show their strong support for the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, making it clear that the Clinton campaign cannot use Michigan as a tool in its power games.

Putting a bumper sticker on your car is one way to make your opinion clear. Here’s one option - simple, direct, elegant. Michigan for Obama.

Liberals Can Wave The Flag Too

The simpleton element of Republican ideology shows itself whenever Republicans start talking about the flag. They have little competitions with each other about who loves the flag the most, and they work up into a fury whenever they see someone who doesn’t have little flags plastered all over their clothes, their cars, and their homes.

What these Republicans forget is that anybody can wave the flag. It’s really not a big deal. Anyone can buy a flag lapel pin. Anyone can stick a big American flag outside their homes. It doesn’t mean anything.

Real patriotism is harder than just displaying a flag. Real patriotism means knowing who your representatives in Congress are, and how they’ve voted on issues that matter to you. Real patriotism means calling up elected officials and telling them what you think about what’s they’re doing in your name. Real patriotism means talking back to power, instead of just worshipping it.

But, Republicans understand patriotism on the level of the symbol, and not the meaning that lies beneath the symbol. Fine. If what it’s going to take for us liberals to get Republicans to pay attention to something more than glitzy superficial patriotism is to wave the flag, then we can wave the flag. That’s easy…

…and that’s the point of this bumper sticker. Republicans can wave the flag, but liberals can wave the flag too.

Anesthesiologists for Obama

The concept behind this pro-Obama bumper sticker is really quite clever, if you take it past its literal level.

We all know that America is in a lot of pain right now, and that a lot of that pain comes right from the Bush White House. 71 percent of Americans now disapprove of the job that George W. Bush is doing as President of the United States. That’s a record-breaking level. No other President, not even Richard Nixon, was disapproved of so much.

George W. Bush has been the worst President in American history, and it’s caused Americans pain.

From that perspective, the goal of the 2008 presidential election is to stop the pain. Who understands pain better than anyone else? Anesthesiologists.

So we see this bumper sticker, then: Anesthesiologists for Obama. Barack Obama is the presidential candidate who can most credibly break with the broken policies and failed ideas that have caused America pain. It’s Obama who can end the pain, and that’s why anesthesiologists support Barack Obama for President of the United States.

My Middle Name is Hussein Too

Barack Obama, as the frontrunner in the presidential election of 2008, has attracted more than his share of nasty attacks. Republicans are becoming desperate. Unable to attack Barack Obama’s politics or qualifications, which are both strong, they’re going after superficial nonsense…

…like Barack Obama’s middle name. They’re actually attacking Barack Obama for the middle name that his parents chose to give him, as if that has anything to do with Obama himself.

It’s become a mantra for the radical right: Barack Hussein Obama. The movie you see below deals with this ridiculous name bashing rather well, I think. The idea is this: If people are going to engage in the religiously bigoted and racist attack that Barack Obama can’t be President because his middle name is Hussein, well then, my middle name is Hussein too.

Think of it as the “I am Spartacus” of the 2008 election. They’ve put it on a bumper sticker too, which you’ll see in this video.

Barack Obama Exposed With The Help Of Bumper Stickers

When you see some worked up right wing political hack start try to promote a video or an online report with a name like Barack Obama Exposed, keep calm and think for a moment: What’s so wrong about someone being exposed?

There’s nothing wrong with exposure, so long as the expose is honest. A misleading, distorting, untruthful exposure is not an exposure at all - it’s an obscurement. That’s what category we need to place the right wing Human Events article entitled Barack Obama Exposed. It’s little more than innuendo, half-truth, guilt-by-association and outright falsehood.

So, let’s expose Barack Obama, but let’s do it our way, unafraid of the silly right wing tactics that have failed to bring Senator Obama down.

That’s the approach taken in the video you see below, which is also entitled Barack Obama Exposed, but with a twist. The video calls upon people to get a Barack Obama bumper sticker to help Obama get the positive exposure he needs to win the White House in 2008.

It just so happens that we have the very link to the Barack Obama bumper sticker shown in the video - offered at a bulk rate too. In packs of 100, they’re just a dollar each, to encourage you to hand them out so that the word of Obama for President can spread far and wide.

I Don’t Just Hug Trees. I Kiss Them Too.

Apologists for a filthy Earth think that they’re being clever when they call environmentalists tree huggers. They believe that they’re making fun of ecologically aware people, but the truth is that the tree huggers term only sounds like an insult to someone who has some serious psychological damage.

What kind of sick mind would prevent someone from loving trees? Trees are one of the most basic, primal objects of adoration for humankind. Trees have been at the heart of human mythology and human subsistence for as long as there have been humans.

So yes, I’m a tree hugger, but I don’t just hug trees. I kiss them too.

Children take special delight in trees. So, Irregular Times offers the following video, featuring, in the middle, a boy climbing a tree and singing about it in delight. Isn’t that the very picture of happiness?

For those who are curious, here’s the very same bumper sticker seen in this video.

Florida, Miami, Obama and the Focused Campaign

Late Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill famously said, “All politics is local.” Oh, if that were true. With the creation and distribution of nationally focused media drowning out local sources of information, all politics in the USA has become national, with people paying more attention to cable TV broadcasts than to what’s going on right around them in their own neighborhoods.

It’s time to take that back, and reclaim the local identity as a relevant force in national politics. That’s one of the reasons the Irregular States catalog was created - to bring items like campaign bumper stickers to people that connect national issues to local identity.

Too many people grab a generic Barack Obama bumper sticker with a message that could apply anywhere. They put it on the back of their cars, and if you didn’t see the car’s license plate, they could be from anywhere.

It’s essential to remember that though the position of President of the United States is national, the election is actually an affair of the states. Unless a constitutional amendment is passed some time in the future, the Electoral College will be the group that actually elects the President - and delegates to the Electoral College will be elected in statewide popular elections.

That makes a statewide focus especially important, and state-level bumper stickers important too. Thus we see that bumper stickers like this one, proclaiming Florida is for Obama, may not be as prevalent as other Barack Obama bumper stickers, but they pack an extra punch.

Let’s take this localization of politics one step further, then. If the state level, Florida for instance, is what establishes the Electoral College vote, then it’s the local neighborhood that actually facilitates the Electoral College vote on Election Day. People don’t all go to one place in Florida to vote, after all. They go to a designated polling station in their city or village.

If you live in Miami, say so. Display a Miami for Obama bumper sticker.

So, support Barack Obama nationally, yes. Support Barack Obama in Florida, sure. But also support Barack Obama in Miami… or in whatever state and town you happen to live in. Focus the lens of progressive activism to affirm where you are in 2008.

A Bumper Sticker For A Time Of Unprecidented Presidential Disapproval

History has just been made. A new poll finds that 71 percent of Americans disapprove of the way that George W. Bush has done his job as President of the United States. That’s record-breaking. CNN quotes its polling director as saying,

“No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating in any CNN or Gallup Poll; in fact, this is the first time that any president’s disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark.”

Even Richard Nixon didn’t have this many people disapprove of him. Not even on the day he resigned.

Resignation. That’s a good word for what’s going on in America - and for what should go on instead.

Under George W. Bush, Americans have become resigned to a failed government and to international embarrassment.

What should have happened instead? Instead of the American people becoming resigned, George W. Bush should have resigned. Even Tricky Dick Nixon had the decency to resign. Even President Nixon had more integrity than President Bush.

So, we think the bumper sticker you see makes a pretty good one to mark the final year of the presidency of George W. Bush: At least Nixon resigned.