A few days ago I was driving through 4 corners in Woburn. I saw there was a Capuano lawn sign planted in the no man’s land in front of the 7-11. I had been delivering signs in Arlington and Burlington earlier in the week. I had one left. I placed it a few feet away from the other sign so both could be seen from the road. I drove by today. Some Capuano supporter had come and moved the original sign and added another sign so the Coakley sign was sandwiched between making it difficult to see. I didn’t have time to move it, dog waiting at home with crossed legs. I will go by later this week. How should I proceed? Should I move the Capuano signs, to a place so all can be seen or to the back of the 7-11? What would you do?
Please share widely!
. . .and leave the petty stuff to other campaigns. Martha has a great field organization thanks to folks like you. Let’s keep our eyes on the goal line.
I will never cease to be amazed at how seriously people take their lawn signs.
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p>A few FYIs: In Massachusetts, you can’t place lawn signs on public space. Perhaps the “no man’s land” you speak of wasn’t actually public property and belonged to whomever owned the 7/11 building or thereabouts, in which they’d have cause to remove the sign you posted.
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p>Finally, lawn signs are almost certainly the most useless political device anyone could come up with; they rarely, if ever, move voters. Take my advice and don’t get overly concerned with them.
Note that there is some bizarre sense of fairness at work whereby it’s okay to obscure a sign completely but it’s forbidden to remove it.
Seemed like we had a 100 go missing in Burlington last fall.
Then your Democratic primary opponents are fairer than your Republican general election opponents.
What, exactly, makes this post so recommendable? What moment of learning or clarity did it bring to you? Was there some kind of cogent analysis I’m missing in this barely-a-paragraph diary? Or is it that you’ll just click recommend on any post that’s either anti-Capuano or pro-Coakley? Honest questions.
Thirteen years as of last August if we count from the first (non-legally recognized) time. Recommending each other’s posts just goes with the territory … especially if I aspire to reach our 14th anniversary!
Classy post.
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p>I think it’s like rooting for the Pats and calling the rival Jets fans “lowlifes”.
it’s silly to allege that ‘class’ is even possible. Lawn signs are a blight on the landscape, like billboards. If somebody moves or obscures your particle of the blight, that you placed on property that isn’t yours, it doesn’t mean they have less class than you do.
in this primary season. Class, indeed.
how many supporters would you say were present when the signs were planted? Do you think it was a regional or state-wide conspiracy?
You make a “blanket statement” about “Capuano supporters” and then claim that you are not petty.
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p>It is clearly either public land, where a sign should not be posted. Or private land, where you clearly did not have permission. I understand that there are local customs, but to then complain. It hardly seems worth the bother.
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p>As to the issue of removing versus moving a sign. Even when a sign is clearly violating local sign bylaws, or unlawfully posted on public property, it would be theft to remove the sign.
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p>LynPB, I have to say this is not what I would have expected from you. You might consider deleting this post.
I’ve never helped out a political campaign that did not believe that its lawn signs were removed/hidden/defaced, and that was not regularly accused of the same.
none of us made a post about the ‘lack of class’ of a group, based on something as trivial and common as this.
We’re all perfectly capable of reading–even capable of discerning tone–and there is nothing in your post to suggest that you were joking. As well, your assertion that commenters here are overreacting is similarly silly.
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p>You might simply want to take responsibility for your post as well as the way you actually wrote it. No one is fooled by your suggestion that we are comedically impaired.
Spoil the joke by telling us where is the funny we’re all missing.
a horse walks into a bar
…to narrow the accusation to one person instead all Capuano supporters, and to resolve the missing apostrophe issue (the thing about the post that most annoyed me, to be honest). I’ve seen supporters on- and off-line from the Khazei, Capuano, and Coakley campaigns (remember Menemsha?) that have all left me unimpressed, as tends to happen.
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p>PS: If anyone saw me removing a Mike Capuano lawn sign the other night from in front of a house, I had permission from the house’s owner to take one of his three and put it on the fence of my residence.
well, I find you calling me Snarky offensive, so I think I’ll give you a zero, too. I think the following saying applies: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” If logical consistency is hard for you, don’t get overly defensive when people call you out on it.
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p>(BTW, I really find this all very humorous. We were supposed to find some sort of (non-existant) humor in your original post, now when I ask if you were joking again, over someone who clearly was not a strong contributor on this site, you zero drop. This election has really brought out the worst from some people.)
because I thought it was absurd anyone could find Menemsha a valuable contributor, right after after calling me “Snarky.” Two can tango, so I returned the favor, given the fact you left an opening. It’s really not very confusing at all. Note, I find the whole ratings game humorous at this point, but I am not opposed to stooping so low as to participating in it when others drop the first salvo. Perhaps doing it, within the technical bounds, will help David, Bob and Charley to eventually decide to get rid of this silly and inane rating system.
of LynPB and Bean is cute by some standards, but tiresome by most. And this whole business of find the missing humor in the pizza a la Guido Sarducci is just stupid.
seemed to think non-Coakley supporters were evil, and practiced what I call “temper-tantrum politics” with regards to “StuPitts”. I also didn’t like that she implied that only certain people were true progressives based on a single litmus test and was quick to downrate people with whom she disagreed.
without regard to the quality of the argument and with regard only to the gist of it.
She basically called any woman supporting another candidate a traitor to her gender.
I think it’s a matter of balance, Lyn. We all can get heated in the midst of a campaign, but outside of primary campaigns, I know and salute the passion you, and so many others have for everyday issues. Menemsha I didn’t know from a hole in the wall until she showed up abruptly, and left just as abruptly. In the meantime, however, we got these gems where passion outstripped respect and fact:
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p>”Pelosi may have even violated the First Amendment ‘congress shall make no law with respect to the establishment of religion’ (because she voted for the Stupak’d health care reform bill)
“This is national anger”
“Pelosi is the chair of the DSCC”
“Being a woman is a handicap”
“All of a sudden the bill is a must do in the middle of the night”
“I hope you feel as foolish as you must be”
“Please note the gang bang above”
“I’d be thrilled to make history here for a change” (!)
Thank you for editing the title post-facto…
working on campaigns that had two sign committees. One to put our candidates signs up during the day and one to take the other candidates down in the middle of the night.
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p>There were these guys who went around in their black pick up trucks with a snow plow attached for those really big signs on no man’s land. With their lights out of course. Usually got arrested anyway.
…that wasn’t a very selective midnight wind blowing those signs down?:) That’s what we always called it at my university during student elections!
As if you were a petty person… you could move the Coakley sign so that it’s visible again, place the Capuano signs back to back so that they only look like one sign, and spread some birdseed under them so that birds will perch there and crap on them.
It’d be nice if this post disappeared into the mist and we could go back to being mostly friends.
I suspect not so friendly before then.
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p>My request – re ratings. Who cares? Enjoy a good rating, ignore a downrating. Spare everyone else any more threads about comment ratings.
We are not equipped with such protective testae as you: you can count on lots of folk taking downratings personally.