In Last 60 Years of Campaigns Only 4 VP Candidates Apart From Palin Had Promotional Buttons

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These posts are at the 

following links: 

1.GOVERNOR SARAH PALIN FOR VICE-PRESIDENT 2008 CAMPAIGN BUTTON IMAGERY
http://tiny.cc/ki1m7w 

2.McCain-Palin 2008 Campaign Buttons With Both Images (Jugate)
http://tiny.cc/xk1m7w 

3. McCain-Palin 2008 Campaign Buttons With No Candidate Images http://tiny.cc/wo1m7w 

4.McCain-Palin 2008 Campaign Buttons; State,"CoatTail" And Other Person/Group References http://tiny.cc/tq1m7w 

5,Anti-Palin Buttons (In preparation)
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Apart from the usual methods of researching past presidential campaigns, old newspapers and videos of television adverts and speeches the buttons and badges, flags and banners and all the other campaign associated ephemera help to give a broader overview. There are an army of campaign button collectors with their own conventions and magazines and serious avenues for campaign items exists at various museums and universities.

This is an outstanding site for political buttons auctions.Type in the name of any candidate e.g. Lincoln and recent auction images etc. will come up
http://www.anderson-auction.com/default.aspx

Political Collectors.com

http://politicalcollectors.com/archive/political-collectors-archive/archive_c175/

American Political Items Collectors
http://apic.us/

In fact campaign items can bring some of the passions,excitement and color that the usual media can't quite express. Buttons show what images of the candidates their teams thought had best impression making and, quite interestingly, what slogans resonated best with supporters and the wider public. In fact a study of a campaigns buttons can often show the progress of slogans for example, in the McCain buttons "Country First" clearly starts off as the main theme and then "Experience Counts" becomes a major theme as the campaign progressed.

The McCain-Palin campaign of 2008 had some unique aspects. Having the first female GOP candidate for a start. Palin is unique in campaign ephemera for having a mass of buttons dedicated solely or mostly to her. One could search in vain for a mass of Ryan, Ferraro or Miller (surprisingly three) or Sparkman (these are the only ones I could find) for Vice-president buttons but, as the posts at the links show there is a mass of Palin for Vice-president buttons. Apart from her, From Ryan 2012 to Sparkman in 1952,  in 60 years these were the only VP specific images on auction

                     

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There is, which is absolutely unique, a mass of anti-Palin buttons which shows the genuine concern about her from the Democrat campaign and also the very real passions her campaign brought up.

For those who would wish to see other posts about campaign items there is the post on the quite beautiful art nouveau Alton B. Parker campaign LINK  http://tiny.cc/wz1m7w, the almost forgotten John W. Davis campaign 
LINK http://tiny.cc/l11m7w
 and the hapless but fascinating 
LINK  http://tiny.cc/uk2m7w McGovern campaign with some of its "hippy" imagery which foreshadowed the Obama 2008 campaign.

If there are button images missing from these posts (which will be updated from time to time as items become available) I would be most appreciative if links to them could be provided