Campaign Managers Have Discovered Something: The T-Shirt

Nothing says "deeply held convictions" like an ironic tee

The best way to win people over with your political views is with an ironic T-shirt, right? What better way to capture the vitality, the energy, the idealism of young voters than by turning a fleeting Internet meme into something wearable and selling it for a $30 donation? Political campaigns have pushed their rapid-response effort into T-shirt making, with the Democratic National Committee and Mitt Romney trading barbs in the 100 percent cotton format.

Mere days after Romney told a heckler at the Iowa State Fair that "corporations are people," the DNC put out this T-shirt, which can be yours for a $30 donation:

Not to be outdone, the Romney campaign, attacking President Obama's Midwestern bus tour, issued this bit of sartorial sarcasm:

The provocative t-shirt is powerful: just look at how the American political conversation shifted leftward with the popularity of Che shirts. Your own humble aggregator briefly fell in love with a boy named Trey in eighth grade after seeing him in the lunch line wearing a worn-thin Green Day "Eat Your Parents" shirt. If a shirt can spark a junior high crush, just think what this many shirts can do for an election.