Retro Campaigns

New Review From Loving This Tee!

2011-02-02T20:22:00.000-08:00

Great new review in from Loving This Tee! Check out the excerpts below and then read the article for yourself:

 I love the vintage look of the shirts from this line ... 

Not only does the shirt look vintage, but it also feels like a tee that has been broken in ... 

Along with the shirt material feeling exceptionally nice, the print area  also feels wonderful. And by wonderful, I mean that you cannot feel the  ink at all. Now that’s something that I love.

Read the rest here: This Just In!: Abraham Lincoln shirt from Retro Campaigns

The Retroist Checks Out Our Tees ...

2011-01-31T21:16:00.000-08:00

The Retroist took a look at our tees recently ... check out what they had to say about us here!

Jesse Jackson for President '88

2011-01-21T15:51:00.000-08:00

Our design, based on buttons from the campaign, is printed on a thin, silver,
100% cotton tee, available in a unisex and a woman's style.

"You must not surrender! You may or may not get there, but just know that you're qualified and hold on and hold out. We must never surrender! America will get better and better. Keep hope alive!"

Speech from the 1988 Democratic National Convention

The New York Times predicted 1988 would be remembered as the "Year of Jackson," the year when minister and civil rights leader Jesse Jackson (1941 - ) launched the most successful presidential campaign by an African-American ever seen in this country, an achievement not surpassed until the 2008 election of Barack Obama.

"When we're unemployed, we're called lazy; when the whites are unemployed it's called a depression."
Interview in David Frost's The Americans (1970)

From Jackson's ambitious but ultimately disjointed run in 1984 sprang a significantly more solid bid in 1988. Among a bland group of six Democratic primary contenders, Jackson's unabashed liberal agenda set him apart and galvanized the progressive base. Jackson proposed single-payer universal health care, as well as increased funding for education, child care and drug treatment programs - most of which would be financed by a return to pre-Reagan era corporate tax rates, tax increases for wealthy Americans and a freeze on defense spending.

"Time is neutral and does not change things. With courage and initiative, leaders can change things."
Speech from the 1984 Democratic National Convention

Jackson's appeal spread beyond African-Americans and die-hard progressives, particularly with his focus on economic equality and job growth. He advocated increased funding for job training and the creation of a massive new public works program. Several primary and caucus wins - most notably a 2-1 upset in working-class Michigan - forced pundits as well as the national electorate to take Jackson seriously. He would amass victories in nearly a dozen contests, with several million votes overall.

"If my mind can conceive it, if my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it because I am somebody! Respect me! Protect me! Never neglect me! I am somebody! My mind is a pearl! I can learn anything in the world! Nobody can save us, from us, for us, but us! I can learn. It is possible. I ought to learn. It is moral. I must learn. It is imperative."

Speech at Anderson College in Anderson, Indiana, March 4, 1979

Though Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis would emerge as the Democrats' presidential nominee in 1988, Jackson's success, culminating in a now-legendary speech at the convention, cemented his position as a power broker within the party:

"America is not a blanket woven from one thread, one color, one cloth.

When I was a child growing up in Greenville, South Carolina and grandmamma could not afford a blanket, she didn't complain and we did not freeze. Instead she took pieces of old cloth -- patches, wool, silk, gabardine, crockersack -- only patches, barely good enough to wipe off your shoes with. But they didn't stay that way very long. With sturdy hands and a strong cord, she sewed them together into a quilt, a thing of beauty and power and culture. Now, Democrats, we must build such a quilt.

Farmers, you seek fair prices and you are right -- but you cannot stand alone. Your patch is not big enough.

Workers, you fight for fair wages, you are right -- but your patch labor is not big enough.

Women, you seek comparable worth and pay equity, you are right -- but your patch is not big enough. Women, mothers, who seek Head Start, and day care and prenatal care on the front side of life, relevant jail care and welfare on the back side of life, you are right -- but your patch is not big enough.

Students, you seek scholarships, you are right -- but your patch is not big enough.

Blacks and Hispanics, when we fight for civil rights, we are right -- but our patch is not big enough.

Gays and lesbians, when you fight against discrimination and a cure for AIDS, you are right -- but your patch is not big enough.

Conservatives and progressives, when you fight for what you believe, right wing, left wing, hawk, dove, you are right from your point of view, but your point of view is not enough. But don't despair. Be as wise as my grandmamma. Pull the patches and the pieces together, bound by a common thread. When we form a great quilt of unity and common ground, we'll have the power to bring about health care and housing and jobs and education and hope to our Nation.

We, the people, can win."

Michael Dukakis '88

2011-01-05T19:50:00.000-08:00

Dukakis/Bentsen supporters stayed faithful with buttons and bumper stickers, like the one upon which our design is based. We print this on a thin, white, 100% cotton tee, available in unisex and a woman's style.

"I made a deliberate decision that I was not going to respond to the Bush attack campaign. That choice was just a huge mistake. It is not a question of forgiving the other side; you have to assume that they are going to do anything and everything to win. The question is are you ready? Do you have a strategy of dealing with the attack campaign? Preferable, a strategy that turns the negativity into a character issue of the candidate that is condoning it. I did not have that essential strategy. I am really not in a position to blame anyone, but myself."
Huffington Post interview, May 23 2009

The chaotic, ugly 1988 Democratic presidential primaries should have primed then-Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis (1933 - ) for the all-out assault he would face in the general election against then-Vice President George Bush, but they did not. His eventual loss remains a cautionary tale to presidential aspirants.

Perhaps the campaign was ill-fated regardless; as the Democratic Party failed to convince two of its stars - New York Governor Mario Cuomo and Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy - to throw their hats in the ring, it was left with a too-wide open, scattershot field, ranging from ultra-liberal Reverend Jesse Jackson to social conservative Missouri Representative Dick Gephardt. Dukakis, riding high off the "Massachusetts Miracle" period of economic growth during his administration, remained largely unscathed as his opposition dwindled. Colorado Senator Gary Hart withdrew following rumors of adultery; Delaware Senator Joe Biden dropped out after plagiarism accusations; Gephardt, a leading contender, was done in by negative ads (including one by Dukakis) portraying him as a flip-flopper on the issues.

"The best America is a nation where the son of Greek immigrants, with your help, can seek and win the presidency of the United States."
Speaking to a crowd during the 1988 campaign

Soon the race for the Democratic nomination was between Dukakis and Jackson. Jackson scored an upset win in the Michigan caucus, delivering the party into a spell of turmoil, but Dukakis would emerge as the overall victor. Though Dukakis had dipped a toe into negative campaigning in the primaries (the Gephardt ad; his staffers also leaked the supposedly incriminating tape of Biden’s plagiarism), he was unable or unwilling to fend off the attacks from Bush. Bush seized upon Dukakis' liberalism, and additionally insisted he somehow was a "Harvard Yard" elitist (Dukakis is a Swarthmore grad; Bush is a Yale alum). Later, when Dukakis at first declined to release his medical records, rumors were circulated about a past psychiatric condition (his long-term doctor repudiated the claims).

The Bush camp also hammered Dukakis over his support for Massachusetts' prison furlong program. Convicted murderer Willie Horton, serving a life sentence for murder without the possibility for parole, was nonetheless released for a weekend, courtesy of the program. He failed to return and subsequently raped a woman and beat a man. The Bush campaign, including manager Lee Atwater and media consultant Roger Ailes (president of Fox News Channel), used the tragedy to smear Dukakis at every opportunity, most famously with an ad entitled "Revolving Door," which, while it did not name Horton, mentioned "weekend furloughs to first-degree murderers not eligible for parole" who "committed other crimes like kidnapping and rape." It was very successful and almost overnight cemented the idea that Bush was tough on crime and Dukakis was not.

Dukakis was also seen by some as soft on national defense, which resulted in a classic moment in campaign preposterousness. Hoping to deflect this criticism, the campaign arranged for Dukakis to be photographed in a military tank at a General Dynamics plant in Michigan. It served no purpose other than to make Dukakis look silly, and the picture was used extensively in ads by Bush.

"A kid of immigrants becomes a governor and runs for president. A true American story ... I'm just a guy who loves his country. I was fortunate to be involved in public life for more than 30 years. Lots of us have dreams; I have lived mine."
CNN interview, September 29, 2005

Though Dukakis' anti-death penalty stance was well-known, during a debate with Bush, moderator Bernard Shaw asked a question many would later claim was inappropriate: "Governor, if Kitty Dukakis [his wife] were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?" Dukakis stood firm and said he would not, but some viewers judged Dukakis not by his answer, but by what they felt was a lack of sufficient emotionality in his answer.

In the end, Dukakis and his running mate, Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen, lost to George Bush and Indiana Senator Dan Quayle in an Electoral College landslide. Today, Dukakis is a political science professor at Northeastern University and a visiting professor at UCLA.

The lessons of the Dukakis loss – respond immediately and with force to negative attacks – likely did not escape at least one Democrat: then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton, who would face his own barrage from the Bush campaign machine in the 1992 presidential election. But Clinton was prepared: he created a team within his campaign whose sole job it was to fend off the attacks.

"My friends, if anyone tells you that the American dream belongs to the privileged few and not to all of us; you tell them that the Reagan era is over and a new era is about to begin. Because it's time to raise our sights -- to look beyond the cramped ideals and limited ambitions of the past eight years -- to recapture the spirit of energy and of confidence and of idealism that John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson inspired a generation ago.

It's time to meet the challenge of the next American frontier -- the challenge of building an economic future for our country that will create good jobs at good wages for every citizen in this land, no matter who they are or where they came from or what the color of their skin.

It's time to rekindle the American spirit of invention and daring; to exchange voodoo economics for can-do economics; to build the best America by bringing out the best in every American.

It's time to wake up to the new challenges that face the American family. Time to see that young families in this country are never again forced to choose between the jobs they need and the children they love; time to be sure that parents are never again told that no matter how long they work or how hard their child tries, a college education is a right they can't afford.

It's time to ask why it is that we have run up more debt in this country in the last eight years than we did in the previous 200; and to make sure it never happens again.

It's time to understand that the greatest threat to our national security in this hemisphere is not the Sandinistas -- it's the avalanche of drugs that is pouring into this country and poisoning our kids.

I don't think I have to tell any of you how much we Americans expect of ourselves. Or how much we have a right to expect from those we elect to public office. Because this election isn't about ideology. It's about competence. It's not about overthrowing governments in Central America; it's about creating good jobs in middle America.

That's what this election is all about. It's not about insider trading on Wall Street; it's about creating opportunity on Main Street. And it's not about meaningless labels. It's about American values. Old-fashioned values like accountability and responsibility and respect for the truth.

And just as we Democrats believe that there are no limits to what each citizen can do; so we believe there are no limits to what America can do."
1988 Democratic Nomination acceptance speech

New Shirt for October! Richard Nixon 1972

2010-10-28T17:06:00.000-07:00

Richard Nixon's supporters in 1972 urged voters to vote for their man with many different campaign buttons, like the one upon which our design in based. We print this classic Nixon slogan in red, on a 100% cotton yellow tee, available in a unisex and a woman's version.

Check it out today!

Retro Campaigns Now Carried By Northern Sun

2010-09-23T12:50:00.000-07:00

We're proud to announce that Northern Sun, a great company out of Minnesota, is now carrying a couple of our designs. Check them out when you have a chance: http://www.northernsun.com

Check out our new FDR T-Shirt!

2010-09-21T12:43:00.000-07:00

Though a major poll at the time suggested that the increasingly divisive Franklin Roosevelt would lose the 1936 Presidential race to Alf Landon, Roosevelt prevailed by a huge margin. This design, based on FDR buttons from that campaign season, is printed on a white, 100% cotton tee, available in both unisex and a woman's version.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt 'FDR' for President 1936 Campaign T-Shirt

New Bill Clinton Tee!

2010-03-24T17:39:00.000-07:00

When President Bill Clinton accepted the Democratic Nomination for second time in 1996, he asked Americans to join him in building a bridge to the 21st century.

Our design, based on this historic moment, is printed on a thin, cotton, baby blue tee, available in a unisex and a women's style.

Check it out here!

Check out our review at Graphictease

2009-12-18T18:47:00.001-08:00

"I am continually surprised by their designs and I'm ready to see more!"

More here!

TroundUp Checks Out Our New Lincoln Tee

2009-12-03T13:35:00.001-08:00

"When Lincoln wasn’t busy fighting Big Foot, he did things like running for and being President (weird, I know). It may be a little late, but if you want to show your support, you can thanks to Retro Campaigns.
It’ll run you $29.95, with all the profits going to the Lincoln campaign (jokes! A bad one at that)."

Read it here!

New Review from Fashion Saved My Life

2009-11-23T19:50:00.000-08:00

The popular blog Fashion Saved My Life took a look at our collection today:

"If you love tongue-in-cheek fashion like I do, you might die over these t-shirts from Retro Campaigns.

You’ve seen the old-school designs for Obama and the Abercrombie and Urban Outfitters vintage-inspired tees, but did you know that now you can show off your support for the likes of Teddy Roosevelt or William Henry Harrison?"

Read the rest here!

Classic Adlai Stevenson Televison Ad

2009-11-16T10:37:00.000-08:00

I love this old Adlai Stevenson ad from the 1952 campaign. From The Living Room Candidate.

We've got a couple of great Adlai tees right now:

New Review from The T-Shirt Review

2009-11-11T20:51:00.000-08:00

"They have broken away from their original style and brought some nice vintage style designs to the field and these designs are complimented by their choice of shirts. For the latest shirts they are using Alternative Apparel’s destroyed tees. They just ooze vintage chic."

Check it out here!

Hide Your Arms Features Our New Tees

2009-11-10T19:46:00.000-08:00

"Finally, Abe Lincoln gets the attention he deserves!"

Check it out here!

UK T-Shirt Supersite Buy Tees Reviews our New Shirts

2009-11-09T21:33:00.000-08:00

"This snazzy little number is available as a 'destroyed tee' in heather for both men and women ... What I love about Retro Campaigns is the way they give you the full low-down on every t-shirt they produce, and more."

Check out the rest here!

"Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" - America's First Modern Campaign

2009-11-06T14:42:00.000-08:00

"We could meet the Whigs on the field of argument and beat them without effort ...
But when they lay down the weapons of argument and attack us with musical notes, what can we do?"
William Cullen Bryant
New York Evening Post
May 30, 1840

The story of America's first modern political campaign seems almost too absurd to be true; it would tax a fertile imagination to weave Daniel Webster, Simon Bolivar, the Shawnee leader Tecumseh and a sitting president with the improbable nickname "Sweet Sandy Whiskers" into a believable tale.

The man at the center of the madness, William Henry Harrison (1773 - 1841), was born into a wealthy and aristocratic Virginia family. After a brief stint in medical school, Harrison found his footing in the military, a guaranteed path to adventure as the young country was continually embroiled in battle in some corner or another.

Valor and family connections landed Harrison governorship of the Indiana Territory, where for 12 years he aggressively negotiated land purchases with Native Americans, including the Treaty of Fort Wayne, a land grab of over three million acres in 1809. The Shawnee leader Tecumseh vehemently denied the legitimacy of the treaty and organized a confederacy of tribes to oppose the settlers.

In November 1811, Harrison led a group of nearly 1,000 men toward the Tippecanoe River in the north. He eventually beat back the tribes, but lost several dozen men in the fight. He would enjoy greater success later in the War of 1812, but it was the battle at Tippecanoe that stuck with Harrison.

The next years brought ... not much. In fact Harrison spent the next two decades unremarkably, variously serving in Congress and hitting up friends for appointments he thought might advance his career. Most notably he was dispatched by President John Quincy Adams to serve as an envoy to Columbia; he stayed in Bogota long enough to announce his disapproval of President Simon Bolivar, blatantly disregarding an order from the White House to keep his nose out of local politics. Harrison was yanked back to America when the Andrew Jackson administration came to power, and he subsequently settled in to semi-retirement at his farm in Ohio. He re-emerged on the national scene in 1836 as part of the Whig Party's ill-conceived multi-candidate ticket created to oppose Democrat Martin Van Buren, who would become president.

In 1840 the Whigs saw a window of opportunity to dislodge the Democrats. That window presented itself in the form of catastrophic financial collapse: inflation and unemployment soared, businesses were lost and crop prices plummeted. Van Buren did little to endear himself to a frightened nation: he blamed the crisis on unscrupulous bankers and greedy Americans, and maintained that the government should not interfere with private business.

Of the losing Whig candidates back in 1836, Harrison was most successful, so he was chosen to oppose Van Buren. The Democrats must have been elated: Harrison was old - older by 20 years than Van Buren. And he hadn't really been involved in the Washington political scene for years. Even with the financial crisis it probably seemed like Van Buren could secure a second term.

The law of unintended consequences played out shortly thereafter when a Democratic newspaper in Baltimore openly dismissed Harrison's candidacy, implying he was a simpleton, ready to be put out to pasture:

"Give him a barrel of hard cider, and settle a pension of $2,000 on him, and our word for it, he will sit the remainder of his days in his log cabin by the side of the sea-coal fire and study moral philosophy."

The image of Harrison as a log cabin-dwelling "everyman," enjoying a good cider and a warm fire, was exactly what the Whigs needed to energize the masses. Hedging their bets, Van Buren was portrayed as a blue-blooded dandy, aloof and unresponsive to the concerns of the common man. In reality he was born to a humble Dutch farming family and left school at age 14.

The beginning of the end for Van Buren was the "Gold Spoon Oration" of Whig Congressman Charles Ogle of Pennsylvania. Ogle ostensibly took the House floor to address a request for funds to renovate the White House, but instead delivered a 3-day skewering of the President, excoriating him for what Ogle described as an extravagant lifestyle.

Ogle told his colleagues and spectators that "Sweet Sandy Whiskers" (the derisive Whig nickname for Van Buren) ate his dinners at a table arrayed with gold utensils, and dipped his "pretty, tapering, soft, white, lily fingers" in fancy finger cups paid for with the "People's cash." Of course there weren't gold forks or spoons in the White House, and Van Buren actually spent very little public money during his term, but the characterization of him as an elitist had already taken hold.

Harrison on the other hand was now the "log cabin and hard cider" candidate, a war hero who would inhabit the office of the Presidency as a dutiful proxy of the average man. Ohio distillery E.C. Booz produced log cabin-shaped whiskey bottles, passed out at massive rallies where bands played songs from The Log Cabin Songbook, with lyrics that reinforced the manufactured personas:

Let Van from his coolers of silver drink wine,
And lounge on his cushioned settee,
Our man on a buckeye bench can recline,
Content with hard cider is he.

Cups, plates, posters and flags were printed with Harrison's face. A newspaper called the Log Cabin covered campaign events, printed speeches and songs, and sold thousands of copies each week. The Whigs promoted their ticket with the slogan and song "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" - "Tippecanoe" of course referred to Harrison's military victory, and "Tyler" was his running mate, John Tyler.

On the pesky matter of "issues" Harrison adhered to the advice of the Whigs and kept quiet - so much so that the Democrats dubbed him "General Mum."

It was an incredibly well planned operation designed to please the crowds, and it worked. Van Buren for the most part ran a traditional campaign, preferring to concentrate on policy matters. Toward the end, though, the Democrats tried to counter-attack with songs of their own:

Rockabye, baby, when you awake
You will discover Tip is a fake.
Far from the battle, war cry and drum
He sits in his cabin a'drinking bad rum.

But it was too later. Over 80 percent of the eligible population took to the polls that November, and Harrison won both the popular and the electoral vote - the electoral by a margin of 234 to 60.

Eager to prove he wasn't the rube of campaign lore, Harrison crafted a colossal commencement speech, shoehorning classical allusions throughout. He let his friend and new Secretary of State Daniel Webster take a pass at editing it; though Webster slashed through, remarking he killed "seventeen Roman proconsuls as dead as smelts, every one of them," it still stands as the longest inaugural address of any president. Harrison stood for an hour and a half in the rainy cold detailing the Whig agenda and vowing, "Under no circumstances will I consent to serve a second term."

Fate took that decision out of his hands - Harrison caught pneumonia and died a month later. "His Accidency," as Democrats dubbed Tyler, took the oath and proceeded to veto nearly every Whig bill that crossed his desk; his cabinet resigned in disgust and the Whigs never truly recovered.

Sources:

Bartleby.Com. William Henry Harrison. Inaugural Address. Thursday, March 4, 1841.
Bryant, William Cullen. Power For Sanity: Selected Editorials of William Cullen Bryant, 1829-1861. Fordham University Press, 1994.
EDSITEment, National Endowment for the Humanities. The Campaign of 1840: William Henry Harrison and Tyler, Too.
Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved October 25, 2009, from William Henry Harrison. (2009).
HistoryNet. American History: 1840 U.S. Presidential Campaign.
Kingsbury, Alex. "William Henry Harrison, Martin Van Buren, and the Birth of the Modern Political Campaign". U.S. News & World Report, January 17, 2008.
The Miller Center for Public Affairs, University of Virginia. William Henry Harrison.
Remini, Robert Vincent. Daniel Webster: the man and his time. New York: W.W. Norton & Company 1997.
Tarbell, Ida M. "Abraham Lincoln." McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, April 1896, No. 5
Tippecanoe County Historical Association. Tippecanoe Battlefield History.
Van Meter, Jan R. Tippecanoe and Tyler Too: Famous Slogans and Catchphrases in American History. University Of Chicago Press, 2008.
The White House. William Henry Harrison.