With one tweet, Trump makes L.L. Bean trendy

The worst presidential product endorsement I've ever seen involved President Barack Obama holding a selfie stick.

I have no idea whether this affected sales of these frightful things or not.

President-elect Donald Trump, however, usually restricts himself to recommending products that have the word "Trump" in their name. Until Wednesday, that is.

In his regular morning Twittering to the nation, Trump declared: "Thank you to Linda Bean of L.L.Bean for your great support and courage. People will support you even more now. Buy L.L.Bean."

I confess I'd never imagine Trump to be a duck-boot wearer, hiking his way through forests and glades. I couldn't find any golf shoes on the company's site either.

So why this product placement? As Trump intimated, Linda Bean, a company heiress and board member, is a proud Trump supporter. She's so much of a supporter that she's been accused by the Federal Election Commission of exceeding the contribution limits to Trump's political action committee, the Associated Press reported last week.

This led to her -- and L.L. Bean -- being targeted by an organization called Grab Your Wallet, which seeks to encourage boycotts of companies that do business, in one way or another, with Trump.

For its part, L.L. Bean took to Facebook on Sunday to say that Linda Bean is one of more than 50 directors of the company. It added: "L.L.Bean does not endorse political candidates, take positions on political matters, or make political contributions. Simply put, we stay out of politics."

But now Trump has brought the company into the sharpest political light. Which means, of course, that the company became a trending topic on Twitter.

"If you're salty about Donald Trump using his twitter account as an ad platform, let me remind you that LL Bean has an unlimited return poliy [sic]," tweeted Pascalle Lepas.

"I see that ACA [Affordable Care Act] is beginning to get repealed so I go to trumps twitter to see if he's said anything about it and all I get is an LL Bean ad," mused a Twitterer called Jeremy.

Another Twitter users called Braak pointed out that Trump had even used an odd tag in his tweet: "guys he didn't even tag the LL Bean official twitter, he tagged their boutique lobster restaurant subsidiary."

Trump had, indeed, tagged @LBPerfectMaine, which features a picture of boats, not boots.

L.L. Bean didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. I suspect, though, that it wishes this would all just go away.

Sometimes, being trendy -- even on Twitter -- can bring hardships.

TRUMP