Apparently there is a serious market for Obama campaign buttons, in a gotta catch ‘em all kind of way. Such a market, in fact, that a pirated button bearing the logo of a very small organization that never actually printed a button will sell for $37 on eBay.

After running for two months, it’s almost time to finish up with TravelForChange. It’s been more successful than we ever expected, and I feel that we really made a difference– nearly 300 campaigners were sponsored by around 150 sponsors. Conventional wisdom says 1 in 14 people are persuaded by personal contact with a campaigner, and a campaigner can talk to such and such people in that timespan. Do some math and I’m sure it’ll turn out that TFC touched tens of thousands of people in states where every vote is critical.

I’d like to thank everyone who worked on the project: Alisa Whitfield, Brian Park, Justine Seidenfeld. Mesa Schumacher, and Devin Sok. And I’d like to thank all of the volunteers who did the real important work. And I’d especially like to thank all the sponsors, and I’d also like to especially thank Alisa for having the great idea and really running the operation and Brian for writing so much of the code for the site.

You can read about TFC in some press-like publications; we were covered by the SF Chronicle, panned by Dan Savage, and mentioned in Wonkette.

Thanks again to everyone involved in the project! Now all that remains is to WIN!