By Sabrina Rodriguez
CHICOPEE, Mass. (abc40) - From masks to cutouts to action figures, every single candidate has something made to their likeness.
If the numbers are right, this year, political novelty will be a big seller.
iParty in Chicopee is already stocking up on plenty of product.
"This year seems to be an exciting race, we have a lot more," said the store's assistant manager Lisa Reed.
From Obama, to Hilary, to McCain, to pigs wearing lipstick, the store is already seeing the demand for political novelty items, and is trying to meet it.
"Obama is outselling everyone from cutouts to masks," said Reed.
In fact, his items are outselling five to one but that may not be the case for long.
"We do have a bunch of Sarah Palin stuff coming in," said Reed. "The glasses, the beehives."
And costumes aren't the only popular items.
Herobuilders.com, which is based in Oxford, Connecticut, manufactures political action figures and has seen a spike in business.
"Obama was outselling McCain. He's now neck and neck. But Sarah Palin is outselling everything on the website combined," said company president Emil Vicale.
Herobuilders.com has been selling the Sarah Palin doll for less than two weeks, but already there's a four to five week waiting period to get one. It's not just the demand that's caused the back-log, each action figure is hand crafted.
"We hand-paint all the heads and someone puts them on the bodies," said Vicale. "It's all hand-packaged and put all together."
The company has its roots in making political action figures when they started seven years ago with a George W. Bush creation. They've seen a lot of business since then, but Vicale knew this year would be special.
"As soon as I saw (Palin)," he said. "That day, I called up one of our sculptors to sculpt one up pronto." Vicale adds that Palin's action figure took longer than usual to create. "It took about four days we wanted to get her face perfect and the hair, that perfect bun."
In case you're wondering about cost, the masks at i-party are about $10 and will be on sale until Halloween.
And the action figures from Herobuilders.com cost around $30.
And the website isn't limited to just action figures there are also political plush dolls and political pez despensers.
