Allawi's team is focusing on demographics as well as imagery, having printed a separate poster for Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, dominated by Sunnis. The poster shows a well-known Sunni candidate on Allawi's slate.
Political alliances that would have been unthinkable under Hussein are at the heart of the campaign.
"We have some very good writers from the Communist Party," Yousif said. "The Sunnis are quite good at putting up posters. They can go to certain Sunni areas and hang up posters. We can't go there."
Though Allawi complains that the TV channel backed by the interim government hasn't given his slate a fair share of air time, his ads run frequently on other stations, presenting images of Allawi with the tagline: "The man of the future."
Opponents counter that he is a man of the past.
Despite Allawi's efforts in exile to overthrow Hussein's regime, his detractors have plastered posters in Shiite neighborhoods showing him and the former dictator melded into one man. "Baathists," reads the caption.
Other posters show him shaking hands with President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The caption: "Collaborator."
The dual if contradictory messages have had an effect on some voters.
"The Americans are trying to collect people around him," said Salah Mohammed, a Baghdad cabdriver. "Allawi is like Saddam. He was one of his aides, and he killed a lot during Saddam's time."
Another cabdriver, headed in the other direction through a Baghdad neighborhood, remained committed to Allawi.
"We need a secular strongman who will protect us from the Shiite militias," said Abdalsalam Kamal, 52. "The Shiite parties are trying to show that he is similar to Saddam, but in fact he was an enemy of Saddam."
Allawi's own posters have been torn down in many Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad. The posters are being defaced after curfew, the candidate said, suggesting the involvement of government forces.
"Who can go out after midnight?" Allawi asked.
So far, his campaign has filed 58 complaints with the electoral commission over incidents ranging from destruction of posters to intimidation and assassination. One candidate on his slate has been killed, and a second was wounded in Mosul recently, his car sprayed with gunfire from a passing police car, Allawi said.
"Eleven bullets they took out from his body," he said. "Eleven bullets!"
For Allawi, politics has always been bloody.
