Pink dollars don't spend like green dollars

I'm unclear why a "proud Democrat" would be supporting McCain, but this story makes perfectly clear McCain's feelings about gays.

John McCain sure would like to be the candidate of every man and woman, but his online store isn’t helping that objective.

Although $25 will get you “Jewish Americans for McCain” or “Business Leaders for McCain” (or most any other variation) T-shirts on McCain’s campaign Web site, if you give 10 times that amount — $250 — you’ll have much less, not more, luck getting a personalized sign.

We learned this from Craig Brownstein of Edelman PR here in Washington, who is a Democrat, gay and a supporter of McCain’s campaign for president.

So he headed to McCain’s presidential Web site to make a contribution and noticed that, for $250, the McCain campaign’s store would create a customized 3-by-6-foot outdoor banner for Brownstein — “25 character limit,” the site says. The store does offer a disclaimer, however: “Demeaning or derogatory names or phrases are not acceptable” and lastly, “All personalized banners are subject to content approval by the John McCain 2008 campaign.” No other limitations are mentioned.

“No problem, I don’t work blue,” Brownstein says. “I ordered the banner, went to check out and entered my desired personalized text: ‘A Proud Gay Democrat for John McCain.’ The purchase went through like any other online transaction.”

A few hours later, however, Brownstein received a call from a woman fulfilling the McCain store’s orders, and she informed Brownstein that the text was not approved. “I was told it could only be personalized with names,” said Brownstein (they would, for instance, accept “Craig and Doug for John McCain”).

Steve Swallow, chief executive officer of Tigereye Design, the official fulfillment house for Obama’s presidential campaign, told Yeas & Nays, “If I came across ‘Gay Democrats for Obama’ on our site, that’s something that we would print,” although he made sure to print that the Obama Web site provides no such personalization options.

The McCain campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Crush du Jour: Michael Phelps