One detail of last week’s Presidential debates that I nearly missed was the Democrat’s swag-bags they handed out to journalists before the event. Included in each of the bags was a pair of “W’s Amazing Rose-Colored Glasses”, which would enable the wearer to:

“See progress being made everyday!”

“Watch as outsourced American jobs turn into profits for your big donors!”

“Block out those pesky 45 million Americans without health care!”

The kicker: “Why bother changing your policies when you can just change your outlook.”

Many designers are talking about design in politics lately, but without any specific applications beyond poster design. Producing kitchy artifacts seems like a good way to apply design creativity to the campaign of your choice. Other ideas that come immediately to mind:

• Halliburton no-bid contracts a la Monopoly
• Maps of all the 60-odd countries aiding Al Queda in the 9/11 attacks, or countries possessing WMDs (with Iraq noticably absent from each)
• An image-rich booklet showing graphs of American troops in Iraq vs. the rest of the Coalition of the willing, who received the bulk of the tax cuts, workforce trends, and the reversal of the 5.6 trillion surplus in 2000 to current 5.2 trillion deficit, etc.
• and [cringing at the idea] Kerry-customized flip-flops

Time to get started, we only have 21 days until the election.