Thom,
As a designer who's created many logos, it looks to me like they flipped the stars in order to make them larger and stil fit inside the elephant.. If you flip them right side up, the points will stick out of the elephant, so you would have to make them smaller to fit, which doesn't have the same graphic impact. That, and following Beelzebub's explicit orders of course...... : )
Comments
Thom, you're still saying nobody knows.....
That makes sense. I mean, making the elephant a little bigger or the stars a little smaller was probably unimaginable.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h3WLnpWEF-I/Twz0qoikLoI/AAAAAAAACAo/Ld08H_TTeH0/s1600/GOP.jpg
http://www.bafractals.com/DOG_BLOG_DIR/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/hi_res_elephant1.bmp
i heard a republican explain that the designers of the logo originally had the elephant shown as "rampant" i.e. on his hind legs. at that angle, they made the stars up-right. then they put the elephant back on all fours, but "neglected"? to re adjust the stars.
You do not change a key element in a graphic logo, unless either you are a careless designer and the client doesn't care, OR you were asked to make the change by your client, who has a point that he/she wants to make by this change.