election 2008

I couldn’t resist posting this as a follow-up to my previous note about the use of political culture in advertising. On my Gmail today, I saw a link that said, “Michelle Obama in J.Crew® – www.JCrew.com – Get the Look Michelle Obama Wore on The Tonight Show Only from J.Crew.” Clicking through it brought me to this page:

This is a very clever use of Michelle Obama’s mention of wearing J. Crew clothes. It seems to be capitalizing on her status as a new style icon (a la Jackie O). Also, it’s an interesting example of our gendered ideas about what products are associated with a male vs. female public figures. Somehow I don’t imagine that President-Elect Obama would be found discussing his clothes on Jay Leno or have his outfits available for purchase at popular retailers.

I apologize in advance if this is post is of interest only to survey research nerds. But I find the following chart from FiveThirtyEight fascinating:

It seems to suggest cell phone-only users (presumably young people) are enough to swing most polls about 2 points toward Barack Obama. No telling how this translates into voter turnout and actually results.

One more thought: while many may think of cell phone-only users as just young people, it is increasingly common way for working class and poor people have phones. So, it may include many black and lower income voters, too.