I first became aware of political convention pins in 1992, when I was covering my second convention — the Democratic confab at Madison Square Garden in New York City. But if there was a golden age of political convention pins, it probably ran from 1996 to 2008, meaning that I got to experience all of it. Any media outlet pin was by nature desirable, from The Associated Press to BusinessWeek to Newsday to The Boston Globe to USA Today to Variety. During the golden age of pins, my own outlet had a special status within the political convention universe. Newsweek has little of the cachet it had in 2004, when it put a classic straw boater on its convention pin.

Source: Washington Post January 08, 2026 19:28 UTC