Palin 'phenomenon' hijacks online sales
(CNN) -- For the first time since the start of the election, merchandise for John McCain's campaign rivals sales of Barack Obama gear at CafePress, an online store specializing in user-generated T-shirts.
The store saw a huge spike in sales on the day McCain announced Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential pick, and McCain sales have been on the rise ever since.
"It was basically like Black Friday in retail terms," said Amy Maniatis, vice president of marketing for CafePress.
Within hours of McCain's announcement, the store had 2,000 McCain-Palin products. Now, there are 323,000. Popular items include shirts with pit bulls wearing lipstick, designs made just for "hockey moms" and a wide selection of anti-Palin gear.
As e-mail tipster Lee Boggs wrote NewsBusters, "Although the word 'hijack' doesn't appear in the story, the headline writers must have felt it necessary to give it a negative slant on their homepage link, so they used the word hijack, which is normally reserved for terrorists and thugs who steal planes and cars."
I can't argue with that, particularly since CafePress couldn't possibly be chagrined by intensified interest in the merchandise on its site. The front page for the Web site puts front and center its Election 2008 gear, which is chock full of T-shirts and other stuff for Democrats calling for a "Time for change" to Republicans who want to "Keep it Red."
