Journalism won’t die if you donate. Support Voice of San Diego today!
The presidential election isn’t happening for another two years but political cartoonists are already drawing sides as to who they want in the Oval Office.
Daryl Cagle says regardless of a cartoonist’s political beliefs – and most, he concedes, are liberal – he says they all want Hillary Clinton as the next president.
But not so much for her ideas as her draw.
“I get more mail about Hillary than any other candidate. People love her or hate her but they’re obsessed with her so, from a business point-of-view, cartoonists would like to see her in office.”
Not that there’s any problem with who is currently in office.
Cagle says he and many of his fellow cartoonists were torn in 2004 because, while they might have preferred John Kerry as a candidate, he was “hard to draw and boring.”
On the other hand, George W. Bush is a cartoonist’s dream even though most of them don’t draw him accurately.
“Bush is not an easy guy to draw so we’ve developed a shorthand and give him big ears, beady eyes and a big upper lip.
“But the truth is, he doesn’t have big ears. His eyes aren’t THAT beady. And his upper lip really isn’t that big. But it works.
“Put it this way. Bill Clinton is as skinny as a rail but cartoonists draw his fat personality, which is why they make him large. And when they draw Hillary, they give her these angry eyebrows.
There’s just so much to work with there.”