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American Apparel makes a hipster of Obama and lands in controversy
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by Rob Peters | February 6, 2008 at 09:34 am
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The American Apparel homepage sported hipstery black and white photos of McCain and Obama on Super Tuesday, with accompanying endorsement messages.
But some political analysts are crying foul, claiming that influencing the fertile minds of voting hoodie-lovers is illegal.
American Apparel is no stranger to controversy, but should the worlds of shopping and voting collide?
The photos have since been taken down, but you can see a small version of the Obama pic here. They originally took up half the homepage.
American Apparel's website and an email are urging people to vote for Obama and McCain, and give a list of reasons why not to vote for Clinton. But Politico's Ben Smith has posted a statement from an FEC spokesman who says the website message may be illegal. "In general terms corporations are not permitted to use their websites that are available to the general public for expressly advocating the election or defeat of federal candidates," it says.
Ben Smith of Politico.com pointed out that the company's high-profile endorsement might be violating campaign finance law. He quotes an e-mail from an attorney who told him that in general terms, "corporations are not permitted to use their websites that are available to the general public for expressly advocating the election or defeat of federal candidates."
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (3)
at 17:25 on February 6th, 2008
riley
burntphotograph has contributed a photo to this story.
at 18:22 on February 6th, 2008
Hello BurntPhotograph,
What is the relevance of the pooch's picture?
~ Swan
at 11:10 on February 7th, 2008
Nice catch Rob Peters. I also thought that it was strange to see such political messaging on American Apparal's splash page. The fact that they claim that "What's good for American Apparel is good for American" seems as far fetch as GM saying the say thing years ago.