branding of obama vs. hillary

[ photo: from nytimes.com ]

The New York Times has a fun article"Is Obama a Mac and Clinton a PC?" (link to full article) that compares Obama to a Mac: appealing to the youth and embodying harmony - and Hillary to a PC: seemingly regal but shouting for attention. Noam Cohen writes, "The Mac may be the cooler computer, but aren’t there more PC users in the world?" The article compares their campaign website design, their public persona, their usage of social-networking tools...essentially what makes up their brand identity as Democratic candidates. And speaking of brand identity, I was on cafepress.com, checking out the selection of Obama/Hillary goods out there (not difficult when the home page's main banner is for "shop election"). And there are buttons/shirts/baby bibs with the typical patriotic stars & stripes motif with the candidates name in a serifed font, as well as, "Barack n' Roll the Vote" in an Urban Outfitters-esque retro graphic. You almost choose WHO you want to support by which T-SHIRT might be "more my style". Silly but you know what I mean right? There are so many design considerations/strategies in this year's campaigning - and well worth it, I suppose, since it's getting criticized/acclaimed/recognized. How fascinating...