5 Campaign Store Items (And What They Say About Candidates)

5 Marco Rubio's "RU(BAE)O" T-Shirt

Rappers have been using the word "bae" since 2005, but it really took off in 2012. Considering it is now 2016 and a potential GOP nominee is using the word, I think we can say that bae is officially dead -- just like how nothing has been "phat" since 1999, and things stopped being "groovy" when RFK was assassinated. Slang isn't just the way young people of every new generation communicate; it can also be a trip wire that sets off alarms in a person's head when an older person is trying to disguise themselves as one of the cool kids.

That's the problem with Senator Marco Rubio's "Ru(BAE)o" T-shirt. With it, he's trying to convince America that he's the super-cool young hotshot senator who'll get the kids out to "Rock the Vote" come November, just like Obama did in 2008. The problem is that Rubio is completely devoid of even a shred of Obama's charisma, charm, and youthful exuberance.

Politicians generally aren't cool. That's especially so for Republicans, who usually seem like human versions of the town that hates dancing from Footloose. When people think of modern cool, they usually don't think, "Oh, those guys who hate gay people and want to control women's access to personal medical decisions? They're awesome! I love it when they whip and nae nae while gerrymandering minority communities into irrelevance!"

The very groups the GOP is alienating are the arbiters of modern cool. Hip-hop slang twisted and tortured into puny slogans will not convince them you give a shit about their well-being.

4 Jeb Bush's "My Dad" T-Shirt

Poor Jeb. He was a deer frozen in the headlights of Donald Trump's gold-plated 18-wheeler from damn near the moment his campaign got underway. Before his online store became a headstone for a spectacularly pathetic presidential run, one could find a T-shirt that read, "My dad is the greatest man I've ever known, and if you don't think so, we can step outside."

Damn, you know what? A lot of stuff was said about Jeb having low energy on the campaign trail and needing to distance himself from the Bush name, but good for him. This was obviously a snappy debate remark or town hall retort that morphed into a rallying cry for his campaign.

Except there's no evidence of Jeb having said that to anyone before the shirt was up for sale. That's ... bizarre for a message that aggressively specific, right? Jeb, now that you have the free time, I'm begging you to answer this: Who the hell were you threatening?!

There's an instinct to shout "NO ONE TARNISHES THE NAME OF MY DEAR OLD PAPPY!" like a cowboy reaching for his six-shooter when a parent is being defamed. But no one did that. And if Jeb's horrendous family legacy really was his biggest weakness, then WHY DID HE PRINT HIS WEAKNESS ON A T-SHIRT?!

Achilles didn't wear a sock with a bullseye on the heel that said, "Aim Here To Defeat Me." Darth Vader never wore a T-shirt with the Death Star's lone exposed vent on it. With one shirt, Jeb Bush turned himself into an uninspired video game boss with an easy-to-spot weak point. During his final debate before he dropped out, Trump hacked and slashed at that weakness until Jeb's political career died.

3 Hillary Clinton's "Chillary Clinton" Beer Can Holder

Hillary Clinton is a calm, composed politician with years of experience. Her demeanor makes sense, given that she was secretary of state -- a job that requires a person to know how to say "No! Not fuck me, fuck you!" in 15 languages. Terrorist states and despots don't respond well to muffin baskets and pool party invites as a form of diplomacy. Case in point: How many of these former secretaries of state do you want to snuggle with?

But she's also a woman. This means she has an image problem. The public doesn't like women who come off as cold; they look at them and see their own unloving mothers who always kept them at arm's length. So Hillary has been faced with a choice: be more human or be labeled an ice wraith and lose all elections forever.

She made her choice. From atop of her mountain of Republican skulls, Hillary Clinton roared her command: "UNLEASH THE SELF-DEPRECATING BEER CAN HOLDERS!"

Hopefully, the "Chillary Clinton" beer can holder was the result of a sassy campaign consultant whose job description is "Chief Officer of Keeping it Real" saying, "You gotta own it, grrrrl!" If the beer koozie doesn't get the message of a softened personality across to voters, look out for her "Hillary Clinton and the Congressional Funkadelic" bong and her "Ha-Ha! Human Laughter, Yes?" whoopee cushions.

A little drink sweater probably won't change anyone's mind about Clinton's likability, but at least she knows what real Americans care about -- namely, the pain we feel when our hands get too cold while holding a beer.

2 Ted Cruz's We "C" Ted Cruz For President Coloring Book

Ted Cruz's store is bonkers. Every item in it makes me wonder if he's running for president or pregaming for the launch of a sporting goods franchise when his campaign inevitably fails.

But none of that can beat this:

In his online campaign store, Ted Cruz, candidate for president of the United States, sells a coloring book. Unless he's nominated for a Nickelodeon Kid's Choice award that I'm not aware of, what purpose does a coloring book serve? Okay, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it's one of those really fancy and complicated adult coloring books that are so in right now.

From pages like this, I can surmise that Cruz genuinely believes the complexity of his platform can be boiled down to a picture book. This is one of the most important jobs on Earth, and the resume he turns in for the interview is something that could be found next to the word search on a Denny's place mat.

This oversimplification of how to run a country has been a recurring theme for the GOP for a while now. Remember when Obama was trying to get the healthcare law passed and Republicans wouldn't stop talking about how looooong the bill was? And then when Herman Cain was running, he said he wouldn't sign a bill into law if it ran more than three pages? That same dipshit philosophy is still alive, and has been made worse by Cruz's coloring book.

You don't need to hear him speak. You don't need to read an in-depth explanation of his views. Just use your crayons to bring to life a Ted Cruz speech that could actually convince you to vote for him, because he probably can't do that himself. Or if that's too hard, have your kids do the coloring and explain it all to you when they are done.

And kudos to the artist for capturing the weird vibe he emits that makes looking at him feel like I'm being talked down to by a megachurch pastor who settles all his sexual harassment lawsuits out of court.

1 Rand Paul's $1,000 Signed Constitution

Let's try to imagine the arrogance of a man who approved the idea of selling autographed copies of the U.S. Constitution for $1,000. You can read the entire Constitution online for free. If you are the kind of person who just has to have it in their back pocket at all times, then you can buy copies for as little as one cent. So basically, Paul is saying that his signature is worth $999.99.

This is a man whose greatest career accomplishment is being Ron Paul's son. Ron Paul's biggest achievement is giving a hard-on to that libertarian guy you went to high school with every time his name shows up on his Facebook feed. Rand Paul, this walking monument to irrelevance, believes his name is worthy of being scribbled across the cover of the U.S. Constitution, as if he secluded himself in a cabin to write the thing by himself with a quill pen and the dream of a better kind of government.

Let's put it this way: If you were thinking of backing a Kickstarter, and the reward for pledging $1,000 was a book signed by a random person who likes the book but didn't actually write it, you would report that fucker to the Kickstarter police.

There's only one thing that can save this: signature quality. Our founding fathers had some nice signatures. Who can forget the lofty standard set by John Hancock's bold and beautiful signature on the Declaration of Independence?

So Rand, I'm ready to be wowed by your astounding signature, which no doubt deserves to be emblazoned across one of the most important documents in U.S. history and sold for $1,000.

Oh fuck off, Rand.

Luis, shockingly, could find nothing interesting in the online stores of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. For this, he apologizes. You can find pictures of Luis adorned in Ted Cruz's football collection on Twitter, Tumblr, and on Facebook.

See why this election breaks all the rules in 4 Political Myths Destroyed By The 2016 Election and check out why Donald Trump might want to stock up on American flag pins in 5 Things You Won't Believe Can Brainwash You on Election Day.

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