Stuck on You

As any resident of the Twin Cities knows, bumper stickers are the preferred way for Democrats to deal with political loss. Driving the highways and byways of these towns you see them everywhere, symbolic, tragic, self adhesive tributes to their fallen heroes: Kerry/Edwards, Gore, and, of course, the many faces of Wellstone!

If Elisabeth Kübler-Ross had used the Twin Cities as a case study for her research, her stages of grief would no doubt have been:

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Bumper Stickers

This summer, I saw a literal loser mobile with stickers for Kerry (loss in 2004), Gore (loss in 2000) and, believe it or not, a Mondale! (losses in 2004, 1984, 1980). Mondale's name with a trailing exclamation point may be the most inappropriate use of punctuation in political history. Unless it was there to express alarm rather than excitement. All things considered, it would have been more correct to go with something like: Mondale;

Dave in Minneapolis has also noticed the bumper sticker phenomenon and writes in with a suggestion:

I'm wondering if either of you has access to a warehouse full of old Bob Dole '96 bumper stickers. I see a constant stream of "John Kerry" or "Kerry/Edwards" bumper stickers as I drive around town (usually they're on the back of that slow-moving vehicle in the left lane). Since the people sporting these stickers obviously haven't cottoned on to the fact that the election is over, and that their guy lost, perhaps the rest of us could put up "Dole" bumper stickers so they don't have to feel so bad about looking so silly.

Of course, their stickers could be a sign of a problem deeper than simple "denial": it could be that keeping these bumper stickers around gives them a certain feeling of smug satisfaction - a feeling that, because they voted for Kerry, somehow they're better than the rest of us. Once again, I view the "Dole" bumper sticker as the perfect antidote: "Oh yeah, you think YOU'RE cool 'cuz you voted for Kerry? Well I voted for Dole! Take THAT, Mr. Smug!"

If not that, do you at least have some old "Hinderacker for soil and water conservation district" bumper stickers? This should send the same message. I await your thoughts and guidance, and possibly the blueprints to Hugh Hewitt's garage (which I'm sure is chock full of old inventory for BOTH campaigns).

A good idea, unfortunately, we don't have access to Dole bumper stickers ourselves. But someone out there on the Internet does. In fact, you have your choice between Dole's ill fated campaign in 1996, in 1988 or in 1980. Or perhaps you'd prefer his vice presidential plunge in 1976? Or maybe you really want to send a message about Quixotic irrelevancy, try this fleeting glimpse of another Dole effort.

Sadly, none of these are probably enough to shake the Democrats out of their electoral fantasy funks. At this point they're in too deep. Drastic times call for drastic actions and perhaps only one remedy will work. Scaring them straight.