Be cautious, someone may be selling “hot” buttons touting Obama campaign

People who attend campaign rallies don’t see the good old-fashioned campaign button much anymore.

The round, metallic pins with a candidate’s picture or campaign logo do not get produced in great quantities, as campaigns often find it cheaper to have batches of stickers containing the picture or logo printed up for use at rallies and other events.

PEOPLE WEAR THE sticker on their lapel for a couple of hours until the glue wears away. Then they dispose of it and get a new sticker at the next political event they attend.

When one does see a traditional campaign button, they usually are for sale – a couple of bucks each, or perhaps three for $5.

People peddling the buttons either have some connection to the campaign (which means the money goes to the candidate), or they are peddling unauthorized buttons with crude slogans (I own a campaign button from 2004 that reads, “I REFUSE to vote for a Son of a BUSH!”) or silly pictures (like then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton with her hair dyed orange and cut like former professional basketball player Dennis Rodman) that the candidates likely wished did not exist.

But for those people who have an interest in electoral politics and also have the habit of collecting junk, the campaign button remains a key item to possess.

WHEN COMBINED WITH the unique character of Campaign ’08, it should not be a surprise that there is a demand for campaign buttons for the presidential aspirations of Democrat Barack Obama.

So perhaps it should not be a surprise that someone may have gone so far as to steal Obama campaign buttons.

At least that’s the situation that police in the Illinois capital city of Springfield were looking into these days. Did someone really swipe a bag of about 200 Obama buttons? What would motivate someone to do such a thing?

Perhaps it is a plot by allies of the John McCain campaign who are sick of seeing Obama’s face plastered everywhere (he literally was on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show on Wednesday, engaging in light banter with her and making telephone calls to her show’s viewers) and partook in a covert plot to benefit the U.S. senator from Arizona.

WAS THE BUTTON theft a tiny gesture to try to reduce the spread of Obama-mania?

Or perhaps it was just dumb luck and the buttons got disposed of, which would be my guess. But police are not ruling out the possibility of theft.

According to the State Journal-Register newspaper of Springfield, a woman was at the capital city hotel where Democrats were meeting Wednesday for a breakfast gathering of the Democratic County Chairman’s Association – which is one of the big annual political events for Democrats of the rural Illinois persuasion.

Later in the day, many of those same party officials planned to visit the Illinois State Fairgrounds for “Governor’s Day” rallies with Rod Blagojevich.

WITH SUCH A market of Democrats in a semi-celebratory mood, the woman probably figured it was a captive market of people who would be inclined to spend a couple of bucks for a souvenir of the presidential aspirations of our “favorite son” who is running for president.

Of course, she made the mistake of taking her eye off her bag of buttons, which she left on the floor of the hotel lobby (just like one-time Chicago Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa once lost a paper bag with $10,000 cash in a hotel lobby in the Dominican Republic).

Then, the woman noticed her bag was missing. She told police that she was out about $100 – the cost to her to make up the Obama buttons.

Of course, I suppose there’s always the possibility that someone really did take the buttons, seeing a chance to sell them for themselves.

WILL THESE “HOT” buttons now turn up on the market, with some shady character pulling the bag out of the trunk of his car and offering to sell them for less than their usual cost? (Hey, a buck a button, the slogan has a nice alliterative effect to it).

Do I now have to give serious thought to wondering if I am purchasing stolen merchandise when/if I go so far as to get an Obama button or two for my tiny collection of campaign memorabilia?

For actually, I have not yet acquired a button for Obama’s presidential campaign (although I do have one for his 2004 U.S. Senate bid against Jack Ryan/Alan Keyes). He is the one significant candidate whom I did not get during the campaign season (seriously, I have two Hillarys, an Edwards, two Guilianis, and one each of Huckabee and McCain).

Now, I have to be skeptical when I go scouring for an Obama, which just adds to the headache.

NOW I KNOW I could just whip out a credit card, go to the Obama campaign web site, and pick out a couple of the many of different designs they would be more than willing to sell me (and ship directly to my residence).

That just seems too easy. Part of the appeal to collecting this stuff is the sense of scouring for material, and occasionally developing a personal anecdote about how I acquired it.

Take the button I have for the 1998 gubernatorial bid of Democrat Glenn Poshard. I bought it off a campaign aide who literally started begging me to buy the button because the Poshard campaign needed every dollar it could get.

It was true, a lot of the big money types who usually bankrolled Democrats in Illinois were not swayed by the Southern Illinois “charm” of Poshard. I suppose this also makes me one of Poshard’s campaign contributors (all of $3, if I remember correctly) in his unsuccessful bid against Republican George Ryan (for whom I have a blue-and-white “I like George” button).

THEN, THERE’S MY button for the ’96 presidential dreams of Pat Paulsen, the actor and comedian from “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” who made many token presidential bids during his lifetime.

With the campaign motto of “United We Sit,” Paulsen himself gave me the button when I was a United Press International reporter helping to cover the Democratic convention at the United Center.

But if I’m not careful, the story that will develop behind my eventual purchase of an Obama for President button (I would kind of like one design I once saw – green and white with a shamrock, it reads, “O’Bama,”) is that it became the time I dealt in the purchase of stolen goods.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Springfield P.D. (and not Chief Wiggum) are investigating the Obama button caper (http://www.sj-r.com/breaking/x1485136999/Obama-political-buttons-stolen-from-Crowne-Plaza). Dumb-da-DUMB-dumb.

Sen. Barack Obama and Larry Craig? It appears to be an erroneous button design, and (http://wenatcheeworld.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080726/NEWS03/379507618) one that has a chance to gain some value from political geeks of the future.

My collection of campaign-related memorabilia pales in comparison to that (http://www.startribune.com/politics/26893159.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aU7EaDiaMDCiUT) of Paul Bengston of Minnesota.

Pat Paulsen (http://www.paulsen.com/archive.html) and his bids for president (in 1968, ’72, ’80, ’88, ’92 and ’96) were capable of drawing some protest votes – once finishing second to Bill Clinton in the 1996 New Hampshire primary.