I Have Earned the Right to Display the RNC’s Precise Elephant

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I am running for Anaheim City Council and  I want people to know that I am a moderate Republican.  To me, that stands for my being a fiscal conservative, running a responsible government with a balanced budget, the economy, and jobs doing whatever someone who should know — hi, Kris! — tells me that Curt Pringle wants me to do.

Lots of Republicans would prefer someone like me, an unsuccessful business person, to represent them. I am here as the voice of no change.

I want to let voters know who and what I am.  So I created my flyers with my name and a drawing of a little white elephant two exact replicas of the trademarked elephant logo owned by the Republican National Committee and reserved for endorsed Republican candidates, which I am not.

I therefore put out this mailer:

I was surprised when I received a nasty letter from my party objecting to my use of the elephant on my signs. They claimed that it was their logo.  It isn’t.

In the story containing that screenshot, their lawyer, RNC chief counsel Sean Cairncross,  described it this way:

“Our elephant is specific. It’s stylized, it’s blue and red, it has three stars across its back that are tilted.”

He also said:

“If you want to say ‘GOP’ and design an elephant that’s similar, want to design an elephant that’s not precisely the same as ours, that’s fine.”

I prefer the advice of blogger Matt Cunningham, who wrote this today:

[Here’s] a quick political trivia quiz. What is the difference between these two logos?

The one with three stars is a trademarked logo of the Republican National Committee. The logo with two stars is not, and can be used by anyone. The “Continuing the Republican Revolution” political slate mailer, for example, incorporates the two-star elephant into its logo. Whether it has three or two stars — or one or four, for that matter, the average voter sees a red-white-and-blue elephant and thinks “Republican.”

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Eastman’s mail piece didn’t claim, either explicitly or implicitly, that she’s endorsed by the Republican Party of Orange County. Taking the claims of the Tait Family Trust/Ahmanson mailers requires assuming an extraordinary level of political sophistication on the part of voters: “Honey, look at this Eastman mailer. It’s using the stylized red-white-and-blue elephant logo with three stars, which is a trademarked logo of the Republican National Committee. Although the mailer doesn’t say she’s endorsed by the Republican Party of Orange County, the use of this trademarked logo — rather than the copyright-free two-star version — forces me to conclude that she has.”

So much for trademark, law — ha!  The NRC made a trademark claim against someone selling products with the GOP logo online.  They said that you can make a slightly different elephant and be OK, but:

“They’re using that precise elephant.”

So am I — and Matt Cunningham says it’s OK.  And he speaks for Curt Pringle!

I have earned the right to display the NRC’s trademarked elephant on my signs.  It tells voters and everyone else that I am a Republican. They don’t have to endorse me.  If I get sued, the Resort District interests will have my back.  (Well, maybe not Disney, but some of the others.)

I do want to be cooperative, though.  So I have started going around with my daughter to people’s homes and asking for their copies of my flyers and we are crossing out the stars on my sweet lovable little elephant.  Just kidding.  I’m not like that cooperative woman Katherine Daigle, who further transformed the elephants on her sign to look even less like the trademarked NRC logo, when they weren’t even red, white, and blue!  I have the power of Curt Pringle and Matt Cunningham behind me — and if I want Mickey Bleeding Mouse on my literature, I shall have him!