Here’s another recently acquired postcard, one from a very specific moment in U.S. history, a good many elections ago.

It was never used for its intended purpose, namely being put in the mail in the service of the McGovern campaign. Not that it would have made any difference to the outcome; not that a million such cards, all mailed, would have made any difference.

I don’t think I’ve seen any presidential campaign cards in recent years, or ever, come to think of it, but more local races still use them. I’m already getting postcard-based claims and counterclaims from candidates for the Illinois State House. I expect more in the coming months.

A particularly memorable example of postcard campaigning was in 2004. As I wrote then, “[Phil Crane] was also the subject of one of the most brilliant direct-mail campaigns I’ve ever seen in politics. Almost every day for about 10 days before the election, we received a large postcard, paid for by the state Democratic Party, all featuring the same picture of Rep. Crane photoshopped onto a variety of backgrounds.

“Each card had a different headline, and backgrounds to match, along with Phil in the foreground in a different outfit: GREETINGS FROM COSTA RICA (tropics, him in a floral t-shirt)… SCOTLAND (golf course, him with clubs)… ROME (Coliseum, him with a camera around his neck)… etc. The point being that Rep. Crane was fond of junkets at lobbyists’ expense. ‘Junket King’ was on several of the cards, too.”

Former Rep. Crane died in 2014. One thing I didn’t know about him was his role in Singapore easing its ban on chewing gum, which was in effect when we were there.