Musing on food and cooking ...

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Yes, All Politics Are Local

Little Merry Sunshine recently put up a post about how there is no escaping that fact that politics are local and that who you support might or might not impact your relationships with your neighbors. Now, her situation is a little funny. She has been blessed with a snow shoveling fairy throughout this horribly snowy winter. She also is likely the only progressive liberal Democrat in a neghborhood of true-blue Republicants. So, her wonder was if she put up a sign supporting her favorite candidate, if her neighborhods would take that as an affront to their conservative sentiments and perhaps cause her kind fairy to vanish into the ether.

Some dear readers might be going, "But, Goddess, it's just a stupid sign." But politics signs in the lawn or being held on the street corner are never just signs. I have seen them leading to yelling matches and, indeed, fisticuffs.

I have always believed that the politic lawn sign is incredibly passive aggressive. I find them lazy. Don't just throw a name at me, people. Why should I give a rat's ass that you support Joe Schomo? Come and talk to me! Tell me why! I might or might not agree with you, but hopefully, we will learn something from our interaction and go away better people. They are also incredibly invasive. If my neighbor has a sign on their lawn, I can't ever not see it. There is no respite.

Which is why I was so incredibly annoyed on Monday morning to come out of my house to discover my lawn had been signed. And not just my lawn, but every single lawn within at least a two block radius.

Democrat Eddie Washington is seeking reelection as the state representative for my district (#60). And it appears that one of his campaign volunteers decided that the best way to get my vote was not to knock on my door and chat with me or give me literature. NO! They felt the best way to win my vote was to trespass on my property and vandalize it. With a frickin sign. That was really hard to pull out of the ground. Dammit.

This signing strikes me as indicative of really bad judgement. As a political figure, Washington should make it clear to his volunteers that this kind of behavior is unacceptable in his campaign. So I will be calling to complain. I will likely be told that it was the work of an over-zealous campaign volunteer. But I also feel it important for Washington to know that this action has had a very negative impact on my feelings about his as my representative.

4 comments:

teryn j. said...

Did you call? What did they say?

Little Merry Sunshine said...

Good for you Gourmet Goddess! You should absolutely complain! Signing yards without permission strikes me of desperation for a sinking campaign. I don't know anything about Eddie Washington (except what I put on my blog comment yesterday in response to the comment you left) and I don't mean to start any rumors. I'm just saying that in my opinion if the only way you can get your yard signs put out is to blanket neighborhoods with them without permission, you may have problems with not having enough supporters. Having worked on many campaigns, I don't know any candidates that would approve of the behavior.

Thanks for the link to my blog and for the post!

LMS

GourmetGoddess said...

I called but no one answered the phone or returned my call. I am very unimpressed. I am looking into his competitor now. Washington also had some inaccurate attack info on his website... attaching his opponent's name to a negative article in which the opponent was not even named. Awful. Awful.

You are welcome to the link LMS!

Brave Sir Robin said...

Bad form indeed.