The routine for politically active individuals from the 1960s and 1970s included sit-ins, protests, and Bob Dylan. As Dylan himself predicted though, the times changed. Americans, responding more to political issues this election year than in 2000 or 2004, still demand that their voices be heard, but are instead letting their dollars do the talking.
Melissa Padgett, manager of The Third Planet, said she noticed the rising demand for political t-shirts when more and more people began asking for and buying the shirts just a short time after the 2004 election. Consequently, The Third Planet ordered its first Obama t-shirts after the primaries, and sells five different lines of Obama shirts, with another line on the way. Padgett said The Third Planet investing so much in election-oriented shirts only makes sense, as the store has a hard time keeping its 36 lines of different political shirts, which sell at an average price of $19.95, on the shelf.
"We wouldn't do it if they didn't sell," Padgett said. "We put our money where our mouth is."
Besides The Third Planet, other t-shirt distributors are also profiting from this election season. In 2004, Ryan Redcorn, a graphic designer and University of Kansas graduate, founded Demockratees, a t-shirt designing company. He said he made $15 a week by selling his shirts to The Third Planet and worked from a 500 square foot apartment in Clearview City, Kan. Today, he said he makes $6,000 a week from Demockratees alone, sells his t-shirts to national community leaders from organizations like The Native Vote, and works from a 3,000 square foot warehouse.
Another Lawrence t-shirt business also hopes to cater to the demand for political clothing. Blue Collar Press, one of the first companies to press Redcorn's designs, just came out with 12 original political t-shirts. Hoping to sell at least 100 shirts before the election, Blue Collar Press plans to have the shirts available to customers in the first week of October. For Sean Ingram, owner of Blue Collar Press, the recent success of the political t-shirt business is easily explained.
"Two things drive t-shirt sales, when somebody's excited about something and when somebody's pissed off about something," he said.
Despite
how trendy political t-shirts may be, Blue Collar Press cannot expect its new
t-shirt lines to bring in any substantial profit past Nov. 4, the day of the
2008 presidential election. This
expectation is not unfounded. A
graph tracking weekly product sales of political items on Cafépress.com shows
the sales figures for items supporting former presidential candidates like Hillary
Clinton fell dramatically since her campaign ended. Ingram said he would donate any election shirts left over
after the Nov. 4 expiration date to Goodwill. Looking past theelection deadline, The Third Planet is busy planning
for Jan. 20, the official end of the Bush presidency. To say good-bye to all of its anti-Bush apparel, Padgett
said the store, which stopped ordering anti-Bush items this year, would hold a
"Bush Burning Sale" from October to the inauguration date. 
Unlike The Third Planet or Blue Collar Press, Demockratees is not expecting the demand for its political t-shirts to go down. In fact, Redcorn said the company, which currently breaks even, is on pace to double its selling rate in the next year, potentially making a $6,000 profit. He said he separates Demockratees shirts from simple political t-shirts by making sure his products highlight diverse issues that are reflective of his own ideologies.
"A lot of the reason I've stayed in business is that my ethics are congruent with the messages on the shirt, my business plan is congruent with it, and the people who are buying it are congruent with the message," Redcorn said.
By giving normal individuals exposure to complex issues that may be under the radar, screen-printing, Redcorn said, can act as a billboard that raises awareness for a cause while, at the same time, expressing a personal opinion or belief. The appeal of the multi-functions of political t-shirts certainly helped contribute to the trendiness of message driven apparel. After noticing signs of this fad growing on campus, Andrew Toth, KU Young Democrats president, said that wearing a political t-shirt to show genuine solidarity for a cause is only a few steps removed from wearing the same item to jump on a bandwagon.
"We, as Americans and as people, reflect what we believe with what we wear," Toth said. "So, in order to support your side and identify yourself as
being on a certain 'side,' you wear a political t-shirt, and it becomes a
fashion statement and eventually enough people do it for it to be trendy."
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