A strange question: how do you feel about bumper stickers? I was recently introduced to a woman who did something simple but striking—she made her own bumper sticker saying, "United Russia is the party of crooks and thieves," and stuck it on her car. And that’s how she drives around. She works at an investment company and is by no means some kind of deranged dem-lib-nat type. She doesn’t go to rallies. She just chose this as her personal way of resisting the regime. A very simple thing, but pretty cool, right? In Amurrica, bumper stickers are one of the most important and popular means of political messaging. Every other car has something like "peace to the world," or "support our troops in Afghanistan," or "all religions are equal," or "everything I wanted to know about Islam I learned on 9/11."
Here’s an example of anti-Obama stickers
And here are pro-Obama ones Could this kind of thing work here? To be honest, at first I completely ruled out the idea of ruining my beautiful shiny bumper (for one day after its rare wash) with some idiotic sticker. And I figured hardly anyone else would disfigure their car like that either. But if you think about it, I spend at least 2.5 hours a day in my car. A thousand people a day would see "UR is the party of crooks and thieves" on my car. And this isn’t graffiti on a fence. It’s an open, non-anonymous statement, so its persuasive effect is quite significant. Judging by the enthusiasm with which our fellow citizens plaster their rear windows with "thanks to grandpa for the victory" (a patriotic WWII slogan), "To Berlin!" and various St. George ribbons (a Russian military remembrance symbol), it’s fair to assume that political bumper stickers could catch on in our country too. A hundred thousand cars across the country with stickers about the Party of Crooks and Thieves would be very useful. It seems entirely realistic to me. Of course, we have to understand that as soon as we start hitting the Party of Crooks and Thieves with our little stickers, the Crooks and Thieves will immediately do the same thing—but with the help of administrative resources. That’s nothing to be afraid of. We’ve seen it before: when Luzhkov was building the "Fatherland" movement, every garbage truck in the city had "Fatherland – All Russia" on it. We’ll have lively, cheerful stickers, while they’ll have dreary garbage on state and municipal transport. People aren’t fools—they’ll be able to tell what’s what. In short, from my point of view this is a promising idea, but one that needs critical discussion. Let’s talk about it in the comments. If anyone has experience using this kind of messaging in election campaigns—or just advertising campaigns—please share. Thanks. And now, a poll: [Error: Invalid poll ID 1752457]