Trump, Clinton bobbleheads draw interest in Milwaukee Admirals' Presidential competition
After the Milwaukee Admirals tweeted a photo of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump hockey playing bobblehead dolls for their Presidential Election straw poll they were surprised at how the picture struck a nerve with the online public.
The Admirals often delve into bobblehead politics during Presidential Election years with Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in 2012 along with Wisconsin Gubernatorial races. But the Trump, Clinton photo seemed to elicit stronger opinions, emotions and interest than the past.
Was it the nature of the election? Was it the lifelike appearance of the dolls? Did it have to do with the close details of Trump’s famous hair?
“They worked hard on the hair and that was certainly a big feature of both candidates. With Mr. Trump, his hair sort of has a life of its own so to speak. We really wanted to make sure that hair was right and the skin coloring was a little bit of a challenge,” Admirals president Jon Greenberg said. “We didn’t want to go too far down the road with the Trump one because I know a lot of people like to quote that his skin seems orange. We didn’t want to go that far. We thought we would keep it as close as we could to reality.”
The timing of the photo also helped – directly following the Democratic and Republican conventions when both candidates were in the news cycle.
“I think it’s just kind of the nature of this election cycle, frankly. I think these two candidates are very different from what we’re … it’s not like typical politics that we’ve had in the past,” Greenberg said. “The Romney/Obama ones were good. Frankly I thought they were really lifelike in terms of the appearance. These just with the way the country is going right now have kind of garnered people’s attention. And to get the image out immediately after both conventions ended I thought was a great opportunity for us to capitalize on what’s been going on.”
The Admirals will have 2,500 bobbleheads of each candidate and the first doll total that runs out “wins” or at least will be considered by the Admirals the likeliest choice to take the White House. The straw poll has been accurate in years past – except in 2012 when the team ran out of Romney bobbleheads first. Milwaukee has not determined the exact date of the promotion.
“We’ve had a pretty good success rate until the last Presidential Election,” Greenberg said. “That was the first time the ‘loser’ of our straw poll came back to win the election. It wasn’t Dewey defeats Truman, but it was different than what we were expecting.”
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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper
