One of the funniest images to emerge from last week's Upper House election was the row of Liberal Democratic Party bigwigs pointing their forefingers to the sky in unison and flashing big stupid grins. The big stupid grins were a reaction to the party's supposed comeback, since they had just won more seats than the ruling Democratic Party of Japan. The fingers pointed to the sky were in honor of the LDP's campaign slogan, "Number One."

Before the election, Asahi Shimbun media critic Yukichi Amano ran a quiz with the slogans and the party names arranged in rows. He challenged readers to match the slogan with the party. "Can you do it?" he asked. "You can't, right? Don't feel bad." None of the slogans seemed to represent their respective party's image. The Japan Communist Party's — "Preserve Orthodoxy" — was the most confusing of all, unless they were actually talking about communist orthodoxy, which is unlikely.

Amano didn't find the DPJ slogan, "Wash Japan," particularly silly. However, he thought the DPJ's TV commercial, showing Prime Minister Naoto Kan doing laundry, was a missed opportunity. It would have been more effective, he thought, if Kan's wife were in the spot berating him to get those shirts cleaner.