Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Stupid Campaign Sign Tricks

Everyone by now has caught the mass vandalism of Brad's signs by Sheila supporters. It is interesting when your support includes a bunch of vandals. I also think it is curious how many of Sheila's signs are in places where they clearly don't have authorization from the owners of the property. For example, at the corner of East Walnut and Jackson there is a big Cole sign that has been vandalized and two or three Sheila signs.

I read a nice letter from John Rendleman in the SI yesterday about this. John is a smart guy and should easily be able to figure out who has access to the 50 or so Simon signs that have been put up illegally over last weekend. You could easily draw a line between the people who put up the encroaching signs and the vandals. Their method was to destroy a Cole sign and put up a Simon sign or 3. I guess asking them to go remove the Sheila signs from the places they don't have permission would be to much?

It was interesting to see Joe Moore's signs up in what appeared to be illegal locations next to my polling place yesterday. He had one on SIU land and one on the other side too (I think that land belongs to the fellow who daughter was a great CCHS runner a couple years back). They were just off the Church lot, so maybe they were legal? Does SIU let you put up political signs? You can check it out at the corner of Chautuaqua and Glenview. Strangely enough, I gave him a vote yesterday. Decided I would rather have him then most of the other choices.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

how were sheila's signs put up illegally? were they put up in yards without authorization?

Unknown said...

You know, a few Sheila supporters have suggested that the sign vandalism hasn't been PROVEN to be committed by Sheila supporters, but who else would it be? Especially since the primary has now narrowed the race down to Brad and Sheila?

I say the "classy" thing to do would be for Sheila to issue a statement asking her obviously over-zealous supporters to refrain from vandalizing the Brad Cole signs from here on out. This is damaging her campaign's image more than it's damaging Brad's signs, so on second thought ... maybe the the "Sheila Sprayers" need to keep it up ... ...

PeterG said...

Yes, that is what I assume. There many places with a big Cole sign and it has been damaged. In addition there are 2 or 3 little Simon signs on the same property.

My estimate is someone had 30 to 50 signs place illegally around town. Should be easy for the Simon campaign to figure out who it is. We can assume it wasn't Sheila and Perry, so who else has access to that many signs? Does that person have spray paint finger?

Hard to miss if you drive around town.

Anonymous said...

Sorry Peter but your "surmise" about vandalism of Cole signs is silly. Judging from the placement of Cole signs around town, his base of support is slum landlords. It is much more likely that the many satisfied customers of this base have taken vengence on those signs, which were probably placed without asking renters' opinions.

Anonymous said...

Stop pretending that there aren't people out there who dislike the Mayor. There a number of people he's ticked off through the years (starting with some the girls he's hit on in bars) who might be responsible.

Is the mayor responsible for the missing Simon signs (including those in prominent locatons, such as the O'Neill-Barke law firm)?

And when will he remove his illegal signs, such as the one sitting on the right-of-way on Walnut about three blocks away from city hall?

You guys are either naieve or hypocritical...take your pick.

PeterG said...

I'm confused about Jack's comment. I think he is saying that it is OK to vandalize private property of someone you don't agree with. I don't think there is ever a time to vandalize private property. Nice try to play the blame on someone else, in the old days people would say it was some random black kid and leave it at that. It is very logically that it was a Sheila supporter, it was a whole lot of work to do that much damage. It would have taken a whole bunch more to harvest 30 or 50 Sheila signs off the side of the road.

What we need here boys is some examples. So, who has Brad pissed off? Was he correct in doing so? Did he piss off come city employee who was stopping economic development or ask someone to work? Everyone who gets things done pisses some people off and Southern Illinois is full of people who only care if someone takes away there state funded cheese away.

Examples or go away defeated.

Anonymous said...

If its logical -- as you say -- that a Simon supporter did these things to the mayors, isn't equally logical that his supporters are doing it to Sheila's signs? In that case, its a wash politically and ethically.

But more importantly -- none of this matters. Its just stupid no matter who is doing it.

PeterG said...

Sure, it is logically. We are in Illinois and it is clear that politics are full contact. Maybe everyone should go do an audit now and remove the signs from spots they don't have permission to use?

Has Sheila filed a police report about these sign thefts? I have read her campaign platform and she is touting neighborhood watch. The primary tool of neighborhood watch is reporting problems to the police. If there is really a problem, get the police to keep an eye out and pretty soon you are likely to have stopped the problem or an arrest.

If there is a problem with her signs disappearing, she must have made a historic amount of them (on the scale of Blair Hull). There seem to be lots more. ;)

It is just stupid, no matter who is doing it.

Anonymous said...

Brad has more signs up now than pre-vandalism. What does the fact that the Simon campaign got more out running up to the election have to do with anything?

I don't know if Ms. Simon has reported the signs missing. You'd have to ask her.

It's still stupid.

Anonymous said...

Unbelieveable!!!! An issue in this campaign is who's doing what to who's signs? This is really childish. There has been good discussion about many other issues, but it seems this sign thing is getting the bulk of the attention. Geez...lets move on. Peter you should ban all future comments about signs and sign abuse and sign malfeasance and..........sign this......and sign that......