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Where oh Where Have the Bumper Stickers Gone? [1]

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Date: 2022-11-05  

Are bumper stickers extinct? I sure hope not!

A couple of weeks ago, as I exited my truck to (1) Early Vote and (2) Hand out slate cards for 3 hours, a passing voter said something like: “Wow! It’s good to see someone with bumper stickers these days! Most people won’t do it anymore.”

I offered a ‘thanks’ and also said: “I’m not easily intimidated.” And besides, I like bumper stickers.

Except for faded TFG stickers from 2020, I can drive for days without seeing another bedorned bumper.

Which leaves me sad.

I miss the days when you’d see a vehicle ahead that either shows they’re a compatriot and would get a thumbs up as I pass them . . . or one that reveals the opposite. And with those, I’d pass to see if my mental picture of that crazy person (aka: profiling) matched the sticker. It usually did.

Bumper stickers also gave me a very unscientific poll of how the GOTV campaign was doing and what candidates were getting the most attention.

Bumper stickers are cheap advertising, and as an ad copywriter of yore, the rule is always to get the most mentions of your product — the candidate — out there as possible and as cheaply as possible. Perhaps the current generation of campaign managers think a Facebook or similar link is more valuable, although I’d like to see some substantive research. I’m Old School that way.

Part of the problem is that bumper stickers now are rarely given out for free. That Tim Ryan sticker in the photo at the top cost me $8 plus shipping.

Well, OK, at least the campaign gets the money.

BUT . . . on pretty much a weekly basis for several months now, I’ve been getting an envelope of campaign information, asking for donations via the mail. Never mind that I’ve been donating on my own for months, my donations were, in one sense, being used to ask me for more donations.

Now if they had stuck a free bumper sticker in there, I probably wouldn’t even be writing this.

Hey Campaign Heads! Clean up your mailing lists people! You’ve got computers and people who know how to manipulate databases. For dog’s sake, do some cross-referencing so you’re not constantly sending stuff to voters already contributing! You’re seriously wasting money. Our money!

End of rant.

One last thing! If you want a bumper sticker when the next election cycle rolls around, ONLY get them from the candidate’s personal campaign site. That way they get the money, not some seller on Etsy, Amazon or someone using their new Cricut. Yes, for real. A quick online search for Ryan bumper stickers turned up a dozen sources, none of which were Ryan’s campaign.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/5/2133882/-Where-oh-Where-Have-the-Bumper-Stickers-Gone

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