The search for the perfect postcard

A request from a good friend of the Irish Echo in New York was passed on to me just before I left for the DNC. He’s a collector of sorts, I guess, for he has a political postcard sent from the Denver convention in 1908, which was the last time the Democrats met there. So naturally, he wanted one sent from the 2008 gathering, too. And I brought the appropriate stamp and began my search the day I arrived.

If election ephemera is your thing, you didn’t have to look too hard for some this past week. Most of it was focused on the Democratic nominee. One of our group said that the Colorado capital had turned into “Obama city.”

For example, a spectacular array of posters, buttons, t-shirts and just about everything else awaited the thousands who poured into the Denver dark each night after the speeches. One seller pushed his specialty item shouting: “Obama watch – Time for change.”

One of the most popular buttons of the week, however, doesn’t mention him, but instead references a gaffe made by his opponent: “Ask me how many houses I own,” it says.

Anyway, I also checked out the 16th Street Mall, a pedestrian street with lots of stalls with Obama and political material. Someone recommended Where the Buffalo Roam, a trendy store (one of a small chain) selling political t-shirts, buttons and posters, again with an Obama emphasis. Barnes & Noble didn’t have much 2008 election material, though I bought a postcard of Bobby Kennedy campaigning for Gov. Pat Brown in California in 1966.

I asked people at the DNC’s own store, which was selling Obama/Biden t-shirts the day after the running mate’s name was announced. But there were no 2008 postcards there or at any of the above-mentioned places, or at any of the stalls relating to the convention, including those promoting the city and state, set up at the Sheraton Hotel. I also went to www.democraticstuff.com where a search for postcards yielded no results.

One of the store employees I consulted said it would be “so cool” to have postcards from both the 1908 and 2008 conventions, and that was the general attitude of all of those I approached. They were sympathetic, but we couldn’t get around the fact that apparently it had occurred to no one to produce a card to mark this year’s event. (I say "apparently" because I can't, of course, say definitely that one doesn't exist.)

And I’m sorry I couldn’t oblige, though I do have lots of interesting stuff mentioning Denver and the Democratic National Convention 2008, which hopefully will be some compensation for our collector.

[Photo: Lynda Clarke and Nancy Touchette traveled from Maryland to the convention.]