I had a few of my yard signs go missing after I put them up, with permission, in privately owned areas near the roads. One in particular on McCormick Road here on the western edge of my district I had a distinct feeling was stolen, because just the day before I had a long and sincere conversation with the owner of the property. I found the owner today and asked him if there was a problem or a reason he decided not to support me, or if he could confirm that the sign was indeed taken without his permission. After pausing for a moment, he told me that the sign was stolen. But before I could respond he went on to say this, which I remember very clearly. He said Son, a political campaign - its like a war campaign. Your opponents are going to do a lot of things that dont directly attack you but are designed to demoralize you and distract you during the days you got ahead. Taking a sign off of my property is probably one of those things theyll do. And the first thing they are going to want a young man like you to do is come knock on my door again and spend part of the evening worrying too much about it. What you need to do is go knock on every single door down the street if one gets taken and put up a dozen more for yourself in that same area. They wont take any of those, I can almost promise you. But if you let them intimidate you and anger you just enough to go back-tracking and doubting your ability to get your name out, then theyve got you losing and theyll probably end up taking more. But this is from my experience living here... When they start taking up your signs, it means youre the one who might be winning with some folks. Keep up what youre doing and dont look back at them. It was at that moment I went from feeling angry and defeated to, for the first time in honestly quite some time, feeling like that might be a real possibility. It seemed jokingly far-fetched here in the rural south, where having the correct letter next to your last name on Novembers ballot is all but essential in getting even basic acknowledgement of your efforts, but the gentleman telling it to me wore the face of years of experience, and a John Deere cap. I couldnt tell him he was wrong. And I couldnt believe he was, either.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 23:46:15 +0000
Trending Topics
© 2015