The George W. Bush Years

This 6” ball of black gaffers tape was used on the 2000 George W. Bush presidential campaign aircraft as part of a game the media crews played while traveling to and from campaign rallies. It started out innocently enough. One morning, a media crew member took an orange from a snack basket. When the plane began to takeoff, he tried to roll the fruit as far forward in the aisle as he could, trying to make it to the VIP section of the aircraft. Just prior to entering Bush’s compartment, the nose of the jet pulled up and the orange rolled all the way back to the media section. From then on, it was a challenge to see who could roll the orange the farthest forward, toward the pilot’s door, before it came shooting back.

After several of the oranges made violent returns and splattered against seats in the rear of the crew section, an alternate plan was developed. We started collecting gaffers tape from the rally sites and forming it into a small ball. Before long, it grew to 6” and provided us was a harmless round sphere that had the appearance of a mini bowling ball. It had the capability to roll all the way to the front of the VIP cabin. The ball was very effective and even made it to the candidate on occasion. The ball was retired upon the completion of the Bush 2000 presidential campaign.