Masking Politics on Halloween

Rather than confront the spooky prospect of putting aside their partisanship for Halloween, several students turned to politics for inspiration.

A self-declared Democrat from Kansas, Anthony C. Biagioli ’06 masked his leftward leanings for the night and dressed up as a Bush supporter.

The costume consisted of a Fox News T-shirt and several Bush buttons with slogans like “Viva Bush” and “W ’04.”

“It was really born out of an inability to think of anything else,” Biagioli said of his getup, which also included a sign modeled after a Kansas City Republican rally where Bush supporters waved posters equating Kerry with Osama Bin Laden. “I like to think of my costume as a parody of the lunacy of some of these right-wing voters.”

Given the intensity of final stretch of the campaign, Biagioli said he was surprised that his attire didn’t garner excessive attention. “A few people kind of looked at me as another ignorant voter,” he said.

On the other side of the political spectrum, Brian S. Gillis ’07, who described himself as moderately conservative, decided to be a Democrat for the day.

“The idea actually came to me when I went to a Salvation Army store back in my home state of California, and I saw this Clinton/Gore shirt from the ’92 election,” he said. Gillis bought the shirt, but joked that he wasn’t allowed to wear it in his Bush-supporting home.

“I kept it for Halloween and I borrowed a bunch of pro-Kerry material from my roommate to complete the costume,” he said.

But Gillis’ pro-Kerry costume came back to haunt him.

After a night of celebration on Saturday, Gillis never made it back to his room in the Quad and woke up without time to change before heading to New Hampshire to campaign for Bush.

“I showed up wearing Kerry buttons, and people were asking me what side I was on.”

Gillis said he turned his shirt inside out to hide his costume.

While some swapped political leanings for the night, others dressed up to show support for their party.

Emily L. Cox ’07, a dues-paying member of the Harvard Republican Club who said she’s not that active in the organization, and her roommate, Candace A. Mitchell ’07, decided to outfit themselves as the Bush twins.

“I was Barbara. She’s the preppier one,” Cox said. Her costume consisted of pearl necklace, polo shirt, khakis and a martini glass.

“A lot of people just thought I was a Republican,” she said. “They asked me if I actually had voted for Bush.”

And while many students donned political attire, few decided to imitate the candidates themselves.

Jess, a saleswoman at Hootenanny, a punk clothing and costume shop in the Garage, said that she had only sold a few Bush masks.

“Someone bought a Bush mask to wear with a gynecologst’s lab coat,” she said. “But that’s really it. We only had two Bush masks and we didn’t sell Kerry masks.”

Kathleen M. White, the owner of the quirky consignment shop Oona’s on Mass Ave. has sold Halloween costumes to Harvard students for years and said she doesn’t carry political masks because there isn’t any demand for them.

“No one really wants to be the candidates,” she said. “I sold a lot of pimp hats but no political accessories.”

Even though students in the Square may have had difficulty getting their hands on candidates masks, some say mask sales in the past have been an accurate indicator of the outcome of the election.

According to polling on buycostumes.com, Bush is currently in the lead with 53 percent of sales as opposed to Kerry’s 47 percent of the market.

At Harvard, 73 percent of eligible voters surveyed by The Crimson last week said they would vote for Kerry if the elections were held today, while only 19 percent said they would support President George W. Bush.

If buycostumes is correct, these students may find Election Day spookier than Halloween.

—Staff writer Wendy D. Widman can be reached at widman@fas.harvard.edu.