Before the Democratic National Convention rolls into town and Barack Obama gives his acceptance speech at Invesco Field, another political icon will unveil his candidacy. The Dr. Seuss for President campaign kicks off at Gallery One Writer’s Square on Aug. 15, just 10 days before the city is overrun with Democrats.

The “campaign” is an exhibit of political art by Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. While just about every four-year old knows “The Cat in the Hat,” who knew Geisel spent years penning political cartoons?

On display through Oct. 31 are the first print editions of Geisel’s political works. A cartoon, “Knotty Problem,” depicts Congress in the machinations of raising taxes without losing votes. The 1942 illustration’s T-square might be outmoded, but the concept is still relevant.

Bill Dreyer, the exhibit curator, says Geisel was brilliant at simplifying things to their essence.

“He’s able to show us who we are and what we’re doing in a humorous way,” Dreyer says.

Prints from “The Lorax,” Geisel’s 1971 story about corporate environmental responsibility and “The Butter Battle Book,” a Reagan-era tale about the dangers of arms proliferations are funny, despite the serious overtones.

Tim Tindle, Gallery One director, says the exhibit opens with a political rally. Altogether, 21 galleries throughout the U.S. will host the campaign, but none with the fanfare planned for the DNC host city.

“We’re going up 16th Street to pass out Dr. Seuss buttons. It’s going to be a fun, lighthearted way to kickoff the DNC,” Tindle says.

Since Geisel explored race and discrimination long before they were mainstream, it’s fitting his works will be released at a historic moment in U.S. race relations, when a black man will be named the Democratic nominee for president.

The Civil Rights Movement was in full swing in 1961. “Freedom riders,” some 1,000 students, took busses to the South testing laws prohibiting segregation. They were beaten by mobs, illegally arrested and jailed. Those were heavy issues, but in typical Geisel fashion, he used a light approach in his story about discrimination published that year. It wasn’t skin color, but bellies with or without stars that determined status quo in “The Sneetches.”

Geisel himself had a taste of discrimination during his teen years. He was born in Springfield, Mass., in 1904 to Theodor Robert Geisel and Henrietta Seuss Geisel, whose parents had all emigrated from Germany. The extended Geisel family faced anti-German sentiment during World War I.

His parents impressed upon young Ted sounds and sights he’d later reveal in his work. His mother, working in her father’s bakery before she married, memorized each day’s pies and chanted them to customers. She got Ted to sleep by recalling those chants.

If his mother provided the cadence, his father provided the characters. Mr. Geisel brought his son to work at Forest Park, which had a zoo where the boy loved to draw.

As a young man, Ted Geisel wanted to be a teacher. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1925, and then briefly attended Oxford University. He was in advertising in 1936, when during an ocean voyage he was bothered by the rhythm of the ship’s engines. He started writing a story on board and set it to the ship’s sound.

It was his first children’s book: “And to Think That I saw it on Mulberry Street.” It had been rejected by 27 publishing houses when Geisel ran into a Dartmouth classmate who offered to show it to his superiors at Vanguard Press.

The book’s resulting success set Geisel on his way to eventually write and/or illustrate 60 children’s books. In 1954, critics lamenting boring primers landed Geisel the task of writing a book that would teach kids to read. “The Cat in the Hat” was born — the “Harry Potter” of its day.

In Ron Lamothe’s documentary, “The Political Dr. Seuss,” Geisel said the formula for his creative process was “time and sweat.” He’d write 500 pages for a 60-page work and he’d discard 90 percent of his drawings. He spent long hours in his La Jolla, Calif., studio, eschewing fame.

Geisel married twice, but never had children, feeling ill at ease around them.

Shortly before his 1991 death, when asked if anything was left unsaid, Geisel answered, “The best slogan I can think of to leave with the USA would be: ‘We can … and we’ve got to ... do better than this.’”

Sounds like a campaign slogan.

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