Bloomberg's amazing -- and rejected -- Mitt Romney cover

It's not hard to see why Bloomberg Businessweek chose not to run with this remarkable illustration of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The creative director is Richard Turley; the rest of the design crew follows:

Creative Director: Richard Turley Design Director: Cynthia Hoffman Graphic Director: Jennifer Daniel Graphics Editor: Kenton Powell, Evan Applegate Director of Photography: David Carthas Art Director: Robert Vargas Designers: Maayan Pearl, Lee Wilson, Chandra Illick and Shawn Hasto Design Manager: Emily Anton

Compare to NYMag's latest cover, which uses the same theme, but is so crudely, cartoonishly photoshopped that it lacks the Bloomberg image's bloody impact.

[via Cover Junkie]

• [Trevel]

  Of course they rejected it: the first rule of presidential candidate fight club is that we do not talk about presidential candidate fight club. 

  • [Jeremy Repanich]

    slow clap.

• [A. .]

  The Bloomberg image is REAL, after all. 

• [Crispian]

  Trevel is right.

  It’s also a more abrasive image than that of the New York Magazine because Romney is alone.  The realism helps a lot, but so does presentation. Take Obama’s mug from the NY Magazine and present it alone with the hazy background.

  • [Navin_Johnson]

    Nah, take a picture of the actual President Obama in The Oval Office doin’ his Presidentin’ duties and counter that with the guy he’s running against:  The lofty 08 candidate Obama out making good speeches.

• [Chuck]

  I’m kind of looking forward to more pics of him in a Bane mask…

  http://barkersandrubes.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/puting-the-bane-in-bain-capitol/

  “When your employer has been reduced to ashes, you have my permission to die.”

• [Antinous / Moderator]

  It worked for Amy Sedaris.

• [Rev. Benjamin]

  I hate stuff like this.  Anything that takes real images of people and degrades them in a demeaning fashion is not cool in my opinion.  And no, I’m not a Romney fan, at all.

• [Navin_Johnson]

  Buck up Mitt, you just made 50k over the last 20 hrs.

• [endymion]

  I dislike Romney too, and it’s really an amazing cover.

  But I’m glad they didn’t run it. The less we use violent images and rhetoric in our politics, even metaphorically (“Newt batters Romney! Romney slams Obama!”), the better.

• [daemonsquire]

  You should see the other guy.

• [Mark Christal]

  Shallow, stupid, idiotic, shoddy. This is the sorry state of today’s jounalism. If I wanted farce, I would prefer to go to Mad Magazine and get a superior product.

• [Joseph Francis]

  But it uses the teal / orange palette. How could it lose?
  http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange-hollywood-please-stop.html