
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 14, 1991                   TAG: 9103140496
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BUTTON MAKER PINNING HIS HOPES ON WILDER

Mort Berkowitz says he can picture Gov. Douglas Wilder as president, even if Wilder himself says he's not running.

Berkowitz is president of a company in New York that makes buttons - the campaign kind. And he's made up a button featuring Wilder's face and the slogan, `Doug Wilder, President '92."

"He's a hot prospect," Berkowitz said. "I thought he was a good candidate."

Berkowitz's firm, Bold Concepts of New York, is selling about 2,500 of the buttons around the country.

Never mind that Wilder denies he wants to be president. His presidential buttons have been selling well over the last month in Washington, Houston, St. Louis and California, Berkowitz said.

In contrast, buttons supporting Sen. Charles S. Robb, D-Va., for president are not selling after six months on the market. "I think people are hot or cold, and he's neither," Berkowitz said.

Berkowitz picks candidates for his buttons based on his reading of the political landscape. He then sells them wholesale to groups that, in turn, peddle them at state political functions or sell them retail.

The buttons sell for somewhere between 50 cents and $2 each.

If all goes well, Berkowitz said, the candidates on his buttons will actually declare they are running for office and, in the interest of time, will use the buttons he has already printed as their official campaign buttons.

Berkowitz got the idea for a Wilder button after reading about Wilder in national publications and seeing that the governor got positive receptions on his trips to New York.

Berkowitz's productions are at least the second batch of Wilder-for-president buttons. Another batch, ordered from a PIP printing office in Richmond, was circulating late last year. A PIP manager this week declined to comment on who ordered them or how many were made.

Wilder's office and the button vendors said the governor had no role in creating the buttons. "All of these are unauthorized; no one asked our permission," Wilder's spokeswoman, Laura Dillard, said.

by CNB