It could have been their big break. Until recently, Blue Q, a Pittsfield-based company specializing in idiosyncratic knickknacks, expected one of its products — an air freshener depicting an impaired-looking President George W. Bush and named, appropriately, "George Bush’s Dumbass Head on a String" — to be displayed in 525 Boston Cab Company taxis come Democratic Convention time. But earlier this week, Boston Cab contacted Blue Q to say the arrangement was off. "I talked to the owner’s daughter, and she said there was a communication breakdown somewhere," says Trevor Ward of Blue Q. "You know, ‘They certainly could not afford or risk alienating a good portion of a potential clientele by having something like that, they’ve already sent them back, apologies all around for the inconvenience,’ blah blah blah."

On Tuesday, Mary Tutunjiam of Boston Cab refused to discuss the company’s change of heart. "We have no comment at all, just to say that we’re not participating," she said. But Blue Q may yet manage to grab the attention of the convention’s anticipated 35,000 attendees. With Boston Cab backing out, no Boston taxi company has accepted Blue Q’s offer to provide free Dumbass air fresheners for every cab in the fleet. But Boston’s Independent Taxi Operators Association has said it’s willing to make the Dumbass Head — which has an overpowering, cologne-like odor described by Blue Q as a "musky, powerful man-scent" — available to individual drivers.

As Blue Q’s Ward sees it, every taxi company in town should be following suit. "It’s just good-humored fun," he says. "The Democrats are having a convention in Boston. They’re visitors. They don’t like George Bush. So you put his dumbass head on a string. You know, it’s really very simple."