Behind the Photo: Andy Irons For President

Today is Election Day in the United States, and while the nation waits to see who will be their next president, we're rewinding the dial back 20 years to 2004. George W. Bush was running against John Kerry, but in the surf world, Andy Irons was at the height of his power. Ruling with an iron fist and a thirst for more power, he led a people's revolution from Kauai to the world's stage. And, of course, there to document it all, was intrepid lensman Steve Sherman.

"In October  2004 Andy Irons had just won his second world title in Brazil. At the time I was photo editor of Surfing Magazine working with my partner in crime Evan Slater, who l was then editor," Sherm shares with SURFER. "With a presidential election looming, we came up with the concept of dressing up Andy as the president for a feature on his world title run," he continues.

Together, Shem and Slater made a lot of magic together at Surfing Magazine, but this would be their piece de resistance.

"Through Andy's people we found out he had a layover flying back from Brazil to Hawaii at LAX. He was gonna be there for nine hours," Sherm explains. "So, we confirmed with Andy that he was into it, and we set up a room at the hotel near the airport and brought all the clothes and the presidential seal for a quick photo shoot. As usual Andy was totally game for it."

Mind you, this was back in the magazine days, when there was no social media and the digital footprint of surfing was fledgling at best. And while he channelled Richard Nixon's "I am not a crook moment," the world wasn't quite in the state of outrage it is today. It would take another month for the results of the photo shoot to come light. He would have been skewered on Instagram today.

"A month later, I ran into photographer Pete Frieden, who was with Andy when won the world title. He couldn't believe I got Andy to do the peace sign because he would have nothing to do with it in Brazil. I told Pete he did it because I asked him too [laughs]."

Of course, this wasn't the first time a favorite surfer had mocked the political establishment. In 1992, Miki Dora took on the original George Bush in the form of a bumper sticker that read, "Mickey For Prez, '92...because Bush don't surf." Tom Curren has also been hoisted into the political fray in the form of a bumper sticker. But nobody pulled it off like Andy, which seems fitting given the mercurial nature of the three-time world champ.