Etch A Sketch inventor dies: Andre Cassagnes, the man who came up with the idea of a drawing tool that may have been the analog manifestation of the iPad, has died at the age of 86 in his native France. The electrician came up with the idea, which involves two small joysticks, aluminum powder and a scraping mechanism, in 1950 — a product which the Ohio Art Company still sells today, and occasionally gets a little pop-culture recognition. “Etch A Sketch has brought much success to the Ohio Art Company, and we will be eternally grateful to Andre for that,” Larry Killgallon, the company’s president, said in a statement. “His invention brought joy to so many over such a long period of time.” You brought the nine-year-old version of me a lot of fun, Andre. Thanks. (ht @margafret; photo by bionicteaching/Flickr)
I think most people in Washington believe voters would make better decisions if they spent more time following politics. But I spend a lot of time following politics, and quite often, I couldn’t be happier that voters are tuning out the inanities that obsess this town. Better that they worry about real mountains rather than hyped-up molehills.
The Washington Post columnist has it right. Sure, these stories are fun, but they’re distractions that conveniently fill air during dead periods of the news cycle.
Etch A Sketch may not have a political position, but it knows when to capitalize on a trend involving its suddenly-popular product. (Click for more.)
The Republican Party has moved so far to the right, you can’t recognize Mitt Romney. What Mitt Romney will appear in October? Mitt Romney has changed positions more often than a pornographic movie queen.Arlen Specter • Basically ensuring that there will be a “Crazy Stuff Arlen Specter Says” Tumblr by the end of the day. (via Matt)
So, sales of Etch A Sketches are way up over the past couple of days. Wonder why.
It makes it much harder, perhaps impossible, for Romney to begin to tack back to the center to appeal to the centrist voters, an absolute necessity for the fall campaign after the free-range extremism of the Republican primary. Every time Romney makes a move, or even a head-fake, it becomes an Etch-a-Sketch moment.
Now, because it’s been said out loud, everyone will be expecting the inevitable flip-flop, and will call it out the second it happens. By calling attention to it, Mitt can’t do it anymore without looking like an idiot. Bro will have to bite the bullet to go moderate. He should fire that adviser, stat.
A Rick Santorum spokeswoman was handing out Etch A Sketches before a Mitt Romney town hall Wednesday in Arbutus, Md., furthering the goading of the GOP front runner after a gaffe by his campaign earlier in the day.
And it apparently worked. After the event, Romney shot back at reporters who quizzed him about it.
“I’m not doing a press conference right now, OK?” a testy Romney said, grabbing a reporter’s tape recorder. He then hastily called a media avail and took one question.
Did he shake the tape recorder like an Etch A Sketch, hoping he’d remove the question from the recording?
In which a Romney adviser compares his candidate to an Etch A Sketch: “You can kind of shake it up, and we start all over again.” Dear Mitt: You may want to shake this guy up and start all over again.
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