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Comic Celluloid Buttons (or Comic Motto Buttons, as they became known sometime in the 1940s) hailed from Johnson Smith & Co. catalogues and became popular in the early to mid-20th century. Recognized by their iconic checkered border and featuring salacious slogans and witty banter, the catalogue promised, “Get acquainted – wear these comic celluloid buttons. Slip one or two of these buttons on your lapel and then wait for the wisecracks to begin. The girls get lots of fun out of them. At parties, you break the ice right from the start. Just give one of these to your guest, and it gives the party a flying start.” 

Johnson Smith & Company began in Chicago, Illinois in 1914 as a mail-order novelty and gag gift supplier, settling in Racine, Wisconsin in 1926. Johnson Smith & Co. or Johnson Smith Company sold an array of toys including pinback buttons with suggestive slogans meant as ice breakers.

"Jazz" originated as slang in the United States in the early 1900s, meaning liveliness and energy; it later became associated with the energetic and exciting musical genre around the 1910s. Some sources suggest that a sexual connotation may have developed, likely suggesting a desire to continue experiencing the excitement, energy, and perhaps the more illicit pleasures associated with the Jazz Age and its music.

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"How Dry I Am" is an old drinking song that laments Prohibition, or the "dry" movement of the early twentieth century. Little is known of the song's origins, except that it takes its tune from an even older hymn, "O Happy Day". Early reports record the refrain as follows:

How dry I am! How dry I am!
Nobody knows how dry I am.

In 1919, Irving Berlin recorded a song entitled "The Near Future", which borrowed from and popularized the refrain. By the 1930s, the song was making regular appearances in popular media, especially cartoons, to indicate drunkenness.

Some prohibitionists embraced "How Dry I Am" as an anthem of the movement's success. This has led to some confusion among collectors over the intended meaning of pinback buttons that bear the phrase. Some claim that the buttons advocated for Prohibition while others describe the items as "humorous" or "cheeky".

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Jimmy Carter was one of the lesser known Democratic candidates in the 1976 presidential elections. Although he had already served as a Georgia Senator and the Governor of Georgia, his name recognition during the campaign was only two percent. Carter's religious background and experience as a peanut farmer appealed to the conservative and rural voters in Georgia. Average Americans recovering from the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate also preferred a Washington outsider like Carter, a fresh face to mainstream politics. To everyone’s surprise, Carter won the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination. He proceeded to win the presidential election against the Republican candidate Gerald R. Ford and served as the 39th President of the United States. He reran for presidency in the 1980 election but lost the race to his Republican opponent Ronald Reagan.

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Hubert Humphrey and Edmund Muskie ran in the 1968 presidential election. Humphrey had previously served as Vice President under Lyndon B. Johnson and was encouraged to run when Johnson announced he would not seek reelection. Humphrey won the official nomination from the Democratic party and ran on a liberal platform that focused on civil rights and nuclear disarmament, although neither issues were popular at the time. They were ultimately defeated by Republicans Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, who won 301 to 191 in the electoral college. 

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Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. served as the 38th Vice-President of the United States. After two previous failed attempts at the presidency, supporters wanted Humphrey to run again in the 1976 presidential election. However, he chose not to run when he learned that he had terminal cancer. Humphrey died of cancer in January 1978.

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Harvey Milk (1930-1978), was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, becoming the first openly gay elected official in California history. Milk earned the nickname, “Mayor of Castro Street” after becoming a well-known community leader and business owner of “Castro,” a camera shop. His liberal views clashed with fellow supervisor Dan White, who resigned from the board in 1978. White unsuccessfully attempted to resume his supervisory role and assassinate both Milk and Mayor George Moscone later that year. Milk had only served 11 months, but his legacy has been immortalized in LGBT history and posthumous tributes such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded by President Barack Obama in 2009. 

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"Had Enough?" was part of Reagan's 1966 campaign for governor of California against the two term incumbent Pat Brown. Four years later in 1970 it was used against him in the his re-election campaign. As the 33^rd governor of California, Reagan's platform was noted for its limited government, welfare reform, efforts to stop student protesting, and substantial elimination of state's budget deficit. 

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George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy were dominant candidates in the Democratic primary campaign of 1968. McCarthy was recruited to run in the primary in an effort to remove incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson from office due to his position on the Vietnam war. McGovern, on the other hand, didn’t join the primary until two weeks before the Democratic National Convention. While neither politician won the Democratic candidacy, both continued to work in the senate against the Vietnam war.

McGovern and McCarthy’s politics were alike in their pursuit to end the Vietnam war. McGovern had been a keynote speaker at several peace demonstrations against the war, and then shifted his focus to try and use legislation to end the war via the McGovern–Hatfield Amendment. Though the Amendment was never ratified, the public recognized McGovern’s intentions and largely agreed with his moral stance on the war. McCarthy, however, had a less amenable reputation in his stance against the Vietnam war and was not equally involved in senate proceedings.