As election looms, this business booms
In GOP stronghold, company holds fast to true-blue roots

Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Alan Johnson
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

FRENCHTOWN, Ohio ? Politics has taken over this sleepy Darke County hamlet, 25 miles from the nearest McDonald?s and the birthplace of Annie Oakley.

Hillary and Barack are here. So are Sherrod and Ted.

There?s nary a Republican in sight, even though Darke County has supported every GOP presidential candidate since 1968.

Actually, the candidates aren?t here, but many of the campaign materials they use ? buttons, bumper stickers, yard signs and T-shirts ? are made and sold here by Tigereye Design.

This time of year, Tigereye, in a building that housed a local landmark restaurant for 50 years, is a buzzing hub of activity as 25 workers make paraphernalia for Democratic candidates in all 50 states.

By the time the Nov. 7 election is over, Tigereye will have made, sold and shipped 1 million campaign buttons, 1 million lapel stickers, 500,000 bumper stickers and up to 20,000 T-shirts.

That?s not counting candidate wall clocks, water bottles, coffee mugs, poker chips and a small line of jewelry that includes a lapel pin of a donkey being politically incorrect with an elephant.

Buttons for U.S. Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are most in demand. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland and U.S. Senate candidate Sherrod Brown are hot, too.

Behind it all is Tony Baltes, a jovial 57-year-old former linebacker for the University of Toledo and dyed-in-the-wool union supporter. That?s why Tigereye now works only for unions and Democrats, turning down lucrative requests from Republican candidates.

"I just don?t feel right working both sides," Baltes said.

Tigereye and its Republican counterpart, the Spalding Group of Louisville, Ky., are part of a new wave of the most common form of political advertising ? putting a candidate?s name and picture on a supporter?s lapel, on a car bumper and in the yard.

Both companies sell campaign items under agreements with individual campaigns. The candidates get no money, and purchasing a campaign item doesn?t constitute a political contribution. All proceeds go to the companies.

"The upside for us is we don?t have to stock an inventory, we don?t have to make estimates or potentially run out of literature or doodads," said Leesa Brown, spokeswoman for state treasurer candidate Richard Cordray.

Baltes started his business several years ago as a struggling high-school sports photographer supplementing his modest income by making photo buttons for proud parents.

Eventually, he formed Tigereye ? named for the local Versailles High School Tigers ? and began doing brisk business while working for union clients. Items depicting Rosie the Riveter, the muscular World War II female icon, are big sellers nationwide.

More recently, Baltes started what he thought would be a sideline business producing political materials. Campaign items will make up 50 percent or more of the company?s sales this year.

The company outgrew space in the restaurant, gobbled up an adjacent house and an outbuilding in back, and again is bursting at the seams.

There is a whole wall of Bush-bashing buttons and stickers. Every nook and cranny holds finished buttons, stickers or raw materials to make them.

During a recent visit, full-color posters of Rosie the Riveter with the head of Nancy Pelosi (minority leader of the U.S. House) were rolling off a printer.

Baltes is enjoying himself.

"I love this business. I don?t want to do anything else. ... I worked in Wyoming as a geologist. I sucked as a geologist."

Across the Ohio River in Louisville, the Spalding Group is the official supplier to President Bush?s campaign, providing materials to every GOP presidential nominee since Ronald Reagan, and does business with J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio?s GOP gubernatorial nominee, and U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine.

Eric Phelps, director of campaign services, said Spalding only works for Republicans.

"It?s always been a partisan thing. We tell the candidates that we have a vested interest in their winning."

At its peak in 2004, georgewbushstore-.com stocked 300 products, from "W" clothing to glassware, golf balls and more-traditional campaign materials.

Phelps said the Internet has been the major difference. The company was asked by the Bush-Cheney campaign to set up a Web site devoted to campaign items.

"Everything has sold well. People want a way to show who they support. Everything appeals to somebody."