Lewis Lazare, the Chicago Sun-Times ad columnist, asked The Escape Pod to participate in an interesting competition. It was this. He asked us, along with several other Chicago ad agencies, to create a print ad for a presidential candidate. The kicker being that we would be randomly assigned the candidate we would promote. We had to agree to take part first. So we agreed. And we were ready to promote either candidate. We’re in advertising. We sell whatever we’re assigned to sell. That’s part of the fun.
We drew Barack Obama. 
And we created the above ad. Our rationale was the following: people really vote against something rather than for something. And the Republican administration (both Bush and Mccain are Republicans) has been an undeniable disaster on several fronts. The economy being the most recent disaster. So we figured that’s something we should leverage. Encourage people to vote against a third Republican administration.
Just as we would have leveraged John McCain’s experience, war heroism, and guy-you’d-like-to-have-a-beer-with-ism had we drawn the assignment to sell his candidacy. And we would have railed against Obama’s lack of experience.
The more money a candidate has to buy media space the better. And a lot of Americans could do with a little catharsis after eight years of Bush. So we had the idea to create and sell something fun that reminds voters of the failures of the Republican administration. Kill two birds with one stone as it were. We are actually producing 125 of these plates that people can actually purchase from us. Via this website:http://plates4obama.com/
Mr. Lazare’s idea is to put the ads online and have the Chicago ad community vote on which one they think is the most effective.
Now urging you to vote for our entry would be wrong from an ethical perspective.
But we are in Chicago. The city that invented creative voting. So…
ESCAPOLOGY (the escape pod's blog) 
Now that is a great idea! Do the people who are in chare of Obama’s campaign now about this?
If i was on the campaign team, I would order all of the plates and send them to every important blog, Newspaper, TV-station, radiostation there is.
Maybe you guys could do it yourselves. And your nex post on this blog might be “How The Escape Pod Won The Election”.
nico, glad you like. again, sorry i didn’t get back sooner. and we are doing what you suggest.
when do i get to go back to amsterdam? i need a fake reason.
Vinny, this is great. I’d like to throw a dinner party for a few of my Republican friends and surprise them at the end of the meal.
maria, i’d like to throw them at my republican friends. i’m keeding! glad you like. thanks.
Great idea! Perhaps an added incentive should be “If you act immediately we’ll also send you
a coffee mug with Bush’s revised version of the
Constitution.”
Earl Carter! Well if you like it, i know we’re onto something. and the mug idea is great. thanks man.