The West Hollywood Halloween carnival attracts over a hundred thousand visitors to the tiny city just east of Beverly Hills. Known for the participants’ outrageous and creative costumes, the Halloween stroll is always full of political satire and social commentary.

This year anticipation was high over the idea of dozens of drag Palins escorted by Joe Six Packs, Todds and maybe a moose or a coterie of bears. But election burn-out seemed to have overtaken the crowd. We spotted only one drag Palin, and just six girls as Gov GILF, though props to the straight duo who dressed as Sarah and Todd before the RNC stepped in and bought their clothes.

There was another straight couple dressed as John and Cindy McCain, plus a Bill Clinton and a Barack Obama. Backwards B-girl Ashley Todd and Michelle Obama, along with Palin seemed a natural for drag costumes, but were nowhere to be seen, and only one Joe the Plumber took to the streets. 

Explained one of four men dressed as dead, texting Metrolink train crash causing engineers:

People are over Palin as a joke. They want to vote, but the point of Palin has been made, she’s not funny, she’s scary. Now everyone wants to have fun, and make sure No on 8 happens.

Indeed, it was two ballot issues that made a high impact: No on 8 which was represented with a mini parade, buttons, stickers, signs, brides and grooms; and Yes on 2, protection for food animals. Proponents of the latter distributed stickers and  several costumes, including a giant chicken and a man in a wire cage with stuffed animals attached, reflected the safer food/kinder treatment ballot measure.

There were a couple groups dressed with clever political commentary including a trio of foreclosed banks and  couples in forties dance clothes with banners reading Nevada, Forida, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania–they were swing states.

The best election related costume? The two guys who built a huge cardboard Russian coast line, and dressed in fur caps decorated with hammers and sickles, rollerskated in it down the Santa Monica Blvd announcing they could see Sarah from their front door.                                                     

[thanks to wehoween_08 for links and pics]