By Angela Kilduff

Halloween festivities combined with election-day fervor at “Abuzz for Obama” on Friday night. Berkeley resident and artist Stacey Moss celebrates Halloween each year with a candy corn-themed fête. For this, the seventh annual get-together, she transformed candy corn cutouts into honeybees abuzz for presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Wearing an orange and black dress with a campaign slogan on the back, Moss welcomed guests – even John McCain and Sarah Palin. (To emphasize their tongue in cheek attire, McCain wore an Obama t-shirt beneath his bathrobe, and price tags hung from Palin’s suit.)

When Moss said, “I really love Halloween,” she really meant it. She has so many candy corn decorations that they require most of the backyard shed during the rest of the year.

This year the Obama paraphernalia rivaled the candy corn decorations. Slogans adorned buttons, candy and even fans. The centerpiece was the chocolate cake, nearly two feet in diameter, iced as the campaign logo.

Before cutting the cake, guest Elaine Zeiger, as the alien “Amabo” (read it backwards), said a few words and invited anyone to “add their Barackas.”

“Well actually, I think we have a word from Barack,” said Moss, as she put on a cd playing an excerpt of Obama’s ‘A More Perfect Union’ speech on race.

Trick-or-treaters got into the fun, including the Obama cheerleaders, who did a routine and stayed for cake.

Before he left, guest Joseph Lough spoke to host Michael Reich, Moss’ husband who is an economics professor at UC Berkeley. “Next time I see you we’ll be living in a new America.”

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