I remember when I was a kid wearing a political button my parents had given me from the 1964 Goldwater-Johnson presidential election. If I remember correctly it had a gold background and the phrase "AuH2O 1964" in blue lettering. I remember some of the other kids mocking me as well, but being that this was 1971 and the Johnson presidency had already proved a miserable failure, I had the last laugh.
Anyway, I'm thinking that 2012 could be the year to replace the political button with the political patch. Almost nobody wears buttons anymore, but I bet you could get supporters from both sides of the aisle to wear embroidered patches. And they would instantly become collectibles once the election was over, regardless of who won.
Obviously, you couldn't use wholesale patches for this sort of thing; you'd have to have them custom made by a company like The Cheap Place. But that's pretty cheap and easy to do. You can request text only or send them your design in digital format.
Text only patches would be a lot like stock patches in that they could be made pretty inexpensively and in large numbers. A custom patch would be a little more expensive but not prohibitively so. The great thing is that anything having to do with the President of the United States and the election is all public domain stuff. The only exception is that you can't use the presidential seal or give any indication that your candidate of choice endorsed your patch unless you have verifiable written proof.
With just four months to go until election day you should order your custom patches if you want them. The Cheap Place can make as many as you want with a minimum of just of 12 pieces.
