PUMA 1, Possum 0: Obama Campaign Retires Presumptuous Presidential Seal

by: campskunk

Mon Jun 23, 2008 at 19:03:18 PM EDT

The word out this afternoon is that the hilarious faux presidential seal unveiled by the Obama campaign is being sent back to the minors. Ken Wheaton at Advertising Age has the gory details:

                             The Possum Sleeps Tonight

Last week, Barack Obama unveiled a new campaign seal -- and not the kind that swims, barks and balances balls on the end of its nose. Rather, it was the kind that has a big old eagle on it and some Latin (Vero possumus, which translates very loosely to "Yes we can"). It's also a seal that combined elements of Richard Nixon's White House police uniforms and George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished." And it went over about as well. Andrew Malcolm at the L.A. Times had some fun with it. And Mickey Kaus predicted it would be disappeared over the weekend. His exact words were: "But unless David Axelrod is insane, the thing will never be seen again."

Kaus was right. While we don't have full details, someone at Obama's press center, when asked if the seal would be used going forward said simply, "No."

Marc Ambinder has an interesting insight into the type of thinking that led to this hilarious episode:

Some Obama aides are enraptured by the idea of an Obama brand that transcends politics; others, including most of those who are actually close to the candidate, are much, much more concerned with the type of hubris that all the talk of an Obama brand actually encourages.

Frankly, that kind of thinking scares me. I too thought of Nixon's presidential palace uniforms when I saw this last week. And we know Nixon's views on presidential powers.

Meanwhile the puma is doing fine... did you notice the seal on Hillary's podium yesterday at the high school graduation? Fuzzy screencap off the video, but you get the idea.