Politically Wild John McCain
“Politically Wild John McCain” published by Newt’s Playing Cards, USA, 2008.
Published by Newt’s Playing Cards in 2008, the pip cards of this pack feature hilarious images of politicians, and political celebrities drawn as wild animals (with rationale or explanation beneath), while the court cards present current issues (such as gun control, health care, immigration, global warming, abortion, etc.) alongside McCain’s views on the topic. The two jokers (or “Wild” cards) are President G.W. Bush as an eagle, and President Bill Clinton as a cottonmouth snake.
Despite these imaginative and creative cards, the Republican John McCain was defeated by Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, the senior senator from Delaware in the November 2008 presidential election. See the box►
Above: Politically Wild John McCain published by Newt’s Playing Cards, USA, 2008.
By Peter Burnett
Member since July 27, 2022
I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.
Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.
Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.
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