New Review From Loving This Tee!

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 ...

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

Jesse Jackson for President '88

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

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

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

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!

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