A Button for Every Delegate

September 5, 2012, 2:23 pm

By ISABELLA MOSCHEN

Are you left-handed? A cat lover? If you're at the Democratic National Convention and you support Barack Obama, there is a button for you. No group is too obscure to profess support for the President's re-election. Pearl divers, rejoice.

Button-shopping is, of course, a big convention activity. Convention volunteers in sneakers race back and forth, hauling plastic bags full of buttons, restocking the quickly vanishing piles. Their customers wait patiently for a new supply of “Women for Obama” buttons. Also popular: “¡Obama!” and “Hipsters for Obama.”

A central merchandise shop in the convention center boasts more than 50 different buttons with partisan themes. An image of a man mixi ng a drink announces, “Bartenders for Obama.” A figure riding a wave reads, “Surfers for Obama.”

“That's because we're the inclusive party,” observed Bionca Gambill, 55, a community organizer and delegate from Indiana. She planned to buy an “Aliens for Obama” button, which depicts shadowy figures and a section of extraterrestrial green, because she liked the double meaning.

Customers rummaged through the bins of various buttons, picking them up and putting them back down again. Am I a Zumba lover for Obama? Or does a “Retirees for Obama” button better sum me up? This is the stuff of identity crises.

Alas, in politics you can't please everyone. A Louisiana state representative, Alfred Williams, 61, had his hands full of buttons that he planned to give as gifts. But he could not find one to suit his profession. He lamented:

“I didn't see ‘attorneys.'”