Delegates to the 2004 Republican National Convention celebrated the nomination of George W. Bush by dropping 100,000 balloons.¹⁵

Most historians credit Thomas Nast, political cartoonist for Harper's Weekly, with pinning the symbols of a donkey and an elephant to the Democratic and Republican Parties. But some argue that the donkey was used earlier, in the 1830s, to ridicule the policies of the Democratic presidential "jackass" Andrew Jackson.¹⁶

In 1948, the Vegetarian Party ran English-born John Maxwell for the presidency. Apparently, no red-blooded, meat-eating American was interested in the party's nomination.¹⁷

The leisure suit almost destroyed a political tradition. The polyester lady-killer, popular in the 1970s, was so hard to pierce with a pin that Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter initially decided not to waste any money on campaign buttons.¹⁸