Campaign Pins

 

Valerie brought home a bag of old campaign lapel "pins" the other day that one of the members of the historical society found.  I plan on matting and framing a number of them for the silent auction this fall.  Most of the pins appear to be from Democrats, which makes the Romney pin stands out in crowd.  The "Elly!" pin in the upper right corner was for Elly Peterson, also a Republican.  She ran for U.S. Senate in 1964 against Senator Phil Hart, whose heart shaped pins you can see in the collection.  I do not know if the trend started with Peterson, but as a campaign hack, I cannot stand when campaign consultants advise female candidates to use only their first name or to feature it more prominently than their last name (the frequent insertion of an exclamation point behind the name also irks me).  I do like the wordless bow tie pins that Governor Williams had.  He had enough name recognition that it did not matter that there were no words.