´óÏó´«Ã½

The taxi driver who brought me and my hastily packed luggage to Union train station in Washington has lived in DC since 1974, and said last night was the first time he could remember people partying on Pennsylvania Avenue, outside the White House, on election night.

The man sitting in front of me on the train had another date emblazoned on his back 1-20-2009. Almost as if t-shirts are being printed now as fast as newspapers.

It makes me wonder what piece of election ephemera from 'campaign 2008' will become the most sought after.

The tat includes plastic figures of the candidates with nodding heads (why, I know not). In the gift shop at the station, only the Obama doll was on display, although there were plenty of other McCain collectibles still for sale.

My colleague Nick is rather pleased with a plastic hand which, like the Buddhist saying, claps alone. This freebie from the Democratic National Committee victory party is apparently for his daughter. But I'm not convinced; I think she'll have a tough time getting it off Dad.

Apart from one McCain and one Obama badge, the only souvenir I'm bringing back is a fridge magnet. It's designed to look like a brown grocery bag, filled with goodies. On the front is the legend "put food back on your table vote Obama 2008". In an election where 62 per cent ranked the economy as the most important issue determining how they voted, it seems the right object to keep.

Badges - or campaign buttons as they're known here - are particularly popular. Perhaps the most stylish has a black background with a simple white letter O. An Obama volunteer I met in Chicago last week proudly showed it off, suggesting it might be something of a rarity.

Presumably, the election result means that even rarer will be the inauguration edition of the McCain family paper doll set. There's one of the Obamas, too, where you can dress parents and children in some of the clothes they've worn at public events. In this, they're following in the footsteps of the Bush and Clinton families. An Obama inauguration set is now in the offing.

Real rarities are what will be getting the buyers salivating on internet auction sites. Just as stamp collectors prize most highly the flawed, so political junkies value the failed.

Defeated politicians whose campaigns flopped are much more marketable than those whose success means their badges and yard signs were distributed by the million.

Earlier this week, someone told me how a colleague, wandering through the hotel where Bob Dole's 1988 presidential victory party was due to be held, found a box full of badges printed for the Dole-Kemp winning ticket. Only they lost. Most of them were probably dumped, so his find could now be quite valuable.

Similarly, if any McCain-Palin victory buttons surface (and remember, they would have to have been printed, just in case) they could eventually become valuable.

My rarest campaign memory ? Not, in fact from the United States but from Britain. It sits in a drawer, along with my 2012 olympics bid badge, and my Blue Peter badge (honestly obtained, I might add). It's a John McDonnell for Leader badge, from his abortive campaign to succeed Tony Blair last year.

Mind you, I'm not sure whether it will remain a rarity, particularly as Mr McDonnell doesn't entirely seem to have given up his ambition."
.