POLITICAL PASSION BECOMES POLITICAL FASHION

Published: Monday, October 19, 1992
Section: DAILY BREAK , page B1
Source: By Roberta Thisdell, Staff writer

© 1992 Landmark Communications Inc.

EVERY FOUR years, politically minded Americans exercise the right to wear their hearts on their sleeves. Or chests.

For every campaign, there's a pile of giveaway goodies, buttons, bumper stickers and hats. Local offices for the three major candidates sell treasures such as a T-shirt printed with Clinton, his sax and the legend, ``The cure for the blues,'' buttons featuring photos of wives Marilyn and Bar, and a ``Virginians for Perot'' banner with Jefferson and Washington giving the candidate a thumbs-up salute.

Washington, D.C., is naturally something of a mecca for those who collect political gizmos. One business there, Political Americana, sells hundreds of campaign buttons daily from locations in Union Station and Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

``Sales are definitely up this year, and there's a wider variety of buttons,'' said Linda Roth, director of retail operations for Political Americana. ``With the entrance of Perot, it seems more people are interested in politics.''

Current offerings are what Roth calls anti-slogans, like the ``Just Say Noe'' button, with a slash mark over Dan Quayle's picture, or the ``President Quayle'' button, featuring the tortured face from artist Edward Munch's ``the Scream.'' Others pander to female voters, with slogans like, ``Elect Hillary's husband.''

Roth also sells two buttons, one proclaiming ``Pro-life, Pro-Family, Pro-Bush,'' the other stating ``Pro-choice, Pro-family, Pro-Clinton.''

The Perot campaign cache has been the most divergent, mostly because the national headquarters never sent out any items.

``People have just gone out and designed things and had them printed up,'' said Michael Rau, the Perot campaign's Virginia communications director. ``It would literally take a book to catalog the things that have come out in this campaign.''

In Hampton Roads, at least 20 different Perot buttons have been spotted, most of them variations on the candidate's ``Take your country back'' theme. The latest offerings are small plastic shovels, Rau said, symbolic of ``digging the country out of this mess.''

At Democratic headquarters in Virginia Beach, campaign workers estimate they've handed out 4,000 Clinton-Gore bumper stickers.

Items include white T-shirts, sweatshirts, jackets and buttons with a red-and-blue Clinton-Gore logo. For the trendier set, there are T-shirts and buttons in basic black, featuring the candidate and his sax.

Proving that Republicans do have some sense of humor, the Republican office in Virginia Beach offers a ``golf towel,'' featuring drawings of a green bush and a, well, quail, on sturdy white terrycloth.

Shirley Darnauer, deputy chairman for the local Bush-Quayle campaign, said the office has sold 30 dozen buttons and six dozen T-shirts.

Roth, of Political Americana, has a piece of advice for would-be collectors: Buy the losing candidate's stuff.

``Truman buttons are worth more because everyone thought he was going to lose,'' she said. ``Winners are more popular, and those are the ones that sell.''

Her biggest sellers in the memorabilia line are items from Kennedy and Nixon campaigns.

``High schoolers are very big on the Nixon buttons,'' Roth said. ``At one point, we had a `Nixon in '92' button that was selling real well.''