Courting the Fathead Vote

Cast your vote and put your candidate up against the wall, says Fathead.

Americans of any political persuasion can now call the other guy’s (presumptive) candidate a Fathead and be right. In fact, Barack Obama and John McCain are both Fatheads, and will be until November.

That is, they’re the latest entries in the line of life-sized vinyl wall decorations marketed by Fathead LLC, the company that sells full-scale, 2-D versions of everyone in sports and entertainment from Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Dallas Cowboy quarterback Tony Romo to Hannah Montana and “Star Wars” cult favorite Boba Fett.

Supporters can save some money while voicing their choice by casting an online vote for their candidate at http://www.Fathead.com/presidential-playoffs. Visitors willing to supply an e-mail address can log a vote for Obama or McCain and get back a code for a 10% discount on the presidential Fatheads, or any other items in the Fathead catalog. The presidential graphics retail for $79.95.

Launched on Aug. 15, the online voting is tallied in real time, so shoppers can tell how their fellow constituents are trending. At press time, Obama had 62% of the on-site vote to 37% for McCain. The Web voting promotion will last until Election Day on Nov. 4.

“The race between McCain and Obama has been so zealous and the coverage so intense [that] Fathead just had to throw ourselves into the fray,” company CEO Brock Weatherup said in a statement. “Our ‘Fathead Nation’ is so passionate about sports and entertainment, we just knew they would want one of the presidential campaign images.”

McCain may be down in the voting on the Fathead site, but he’s up in another significant way. Both the presidential Fathead graphics are advertised as 6’ 5”tall. That gives the Obama poster a few inches more than his just-over-six-foot actual size. But at that same 6’5” height, the wall-mounted McCain has about a 10-inch advantage over his 5’ 7” real-life counterpart.