The Republican nominating contest has been inescapable news for months, with an outrageous amount of nationally televised debates, millions of dollars worth of political super PAC ads and countless hours of town hall meetings.
This month, the GOP hopefuls will be popping up in an unusual place—in packs of Upper Deck sports trading cards.
Starting Feb. 21, Upper Deck will randomly include nine special cards in their "World of Sports" packs. The cards, called the "World of Politics" edition, feature President Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul, Herman Cain, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry and a baseball-throwing Rick Santorum.
Curiously, Jon Huntsman, who hung around the nominating contests longer than Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann, was not included in the group. Sarah Palin never officially joined the fray, but Upper Deck decided to include her anyway.
[See pictures of the 2012 GOP candidates.]
"We work hard to provide topical content in our new trading card releases," said Jason Masherah, Upper Deck's vice president of Marketing and Business Development in a press release. "With so much attention around the 2012 election, we thought it was only fitting to produce a set of cards that would help pay tribute to all the highs and lows of this presidential race by capturing the top candidates on cardboard."
Chris Carlin, Sports Marketing & Social Media Manager at Upper Deck, says that the idea for the cards came up about six months ago. The decision on which politicians to feature in the special set was "based on who we felt would be the bigger stories," he says.
The cards will appear in one out of every 40 packs in the "World of Sports" series, and it will produce "a super-rare variation of these cards that will have collectors hungry to find more."
Reader Comments Read all comments (1)
Kevin of PA 8:30AM February 14, 2012