Report from Kennebunkport

[smirkymonkey]

Yes, I spent a long Labor Day weekend there, but I wanted to report that Kerry/Edwards bumper stickers, signs & other paraphanalia outnumbered Bush/Cheney by about 6:1.

Best Bumper Stickers: "Kerrybunkport" and "Never Vote for a Son-of-a-Bush"

Huge "Kennebunkport for Kerry/Edwards" Banner hanging off the side of a building right in Dock Square. Lots of anti-Bush/W buttons to be seen everywhere.

Best Front Lawn Sign: "George W. Bush is a Dumbass"

Things must be pretty bad when the locals start turning on you!

[calimary]

1. One can only hope - and pray.

[Career Prole]

2. I wanna live there!!

That's a hoot!

[NJCher]

3. Smirky, that is a scream

I absolutely love it. Perfect end to my day.


Cher

[Fridays Child]

4. They oughta run the B*shes out, burn their houses, and salt the earth.

eom

[StandAndReceive]

14. Why?

What good would that do?

[smirkymonkey]

17. Environmental reasons.

eom

[StandAndReceive]

19. How does salting the earth help the environment?

eom

[Eloriel]

20. Oh, it's hyperbole

And wishful thinking (fantasy). Nothing meant in seriousness, I'm sure. You see, no one here likes the Bushes. Do YOU?

[tblue37]

21. When the Romans finally defeated Carthage,

they salted the earth so that it would never again be fertile. The idea is to make sure the Bushes are permanently put out of commission, so they will never rise again.

(I assume you were wondering what it means to salt the earth.)

[smirkymonkey]

23. it was a joke, nothing to do with salt.

[Fridays Child]

22. You have no power here. Now, be gone, before somebody...

...drops a tombstone on you.

[MidwestMomma]

15. Salt the earth...

I love that!

:yourock:

[hlthe2b]

5. As one who has never been there, is Kennebunkport small enough

that Bush SR and Babs can't avoid seeing these stickers and yardsigns? Did you see them close to the Bush "estate?"

[Maine-i-acs]

7. Only a couple major roads

Good saturation like that would definitely be hard to miss. And Shrub seems to be writing the state off - minimal Swiftie ads here.

Maine hates the Bushes - Perot even beat poppy in '92. Read my sig line to find out why.

[hlthe2b]

11. Mainiacs are smart, honorable and right in their disdain..... My congrats

[smirkymonkey]

16. I knew that the rest of the state hated them, but I am surprised

about the Southern Maine Coast. I would LOVE to hear the locals' tales of their Bush Encounters. I am sure there are years and years of incriminating stories just waiting to be told.

[smirkymonkey]

9. Yes, K-port is very small and tightly packed

Unless the Bush family takes a helicopter in and out of Walker's point directly, there is pretty much no way they could be shielded from this. Dock Square is the center of town and pretty unavoidable.

The estate, Walker's Point, is out past the town about a mile or two, but there are only a few ways to get there and they would have had to seen some of these signs/stickers (cars parked all along Goose Rocks beach, which is close to Walker's point, and signs in people's windows supporting Kerry/Edwards.)

I was surprised because I had always thought that K-port leaned Republican, but you would never know it had you spent the weekend there.

[Malva Zebrina]

6. The Bush family has never done a thing for Maine

much less Kennebunkport. It is a small town relying mostly on their boutique tourist shops that may or may not appeal to the summer tourists. In the winter, it starves and is empty and deserted, like many of the small touristy Maine towns on the coast. The businesses rely upon about four months of business and are sparse and empty after that.

[JohnnyRingo]

8. I bet "Bar" is livid.

By all accounts GW is her favorite.

She probably hires someone to shield her eyes from the signs as she's motored about the neighborhood.

[smirkymonkey]

12. Wouldn't want to trouble her "beautiful mind" with the TRUTH,

or anything that counters her rose-colored,warped view of her family's place in the hearts and minds of "the people."

[Jane Eyre]

10. The Kerry/Edwards bumper-sticker & yard sign phenomenon

Here in Charlotte, Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker and signs are EVERYWHERE!!! I even see them in areas of town that are Republican strongholds. Very rarely does one see a Bush/Cheney sticker, and I have yet to see a yard sign.

My take on this: The Democratic party regulars are very motivated, enough to go online and buy yardsigns and stickers. The internet has made it easier to obtain these items online or through the Kerry/Edwards Meetups that have been organized online. In 2000, it was impossible to get Gore/Lieberman signs here because we were not a targeted state. These items are NOT coming directly from the campaign or the party!

How this will translate into votes is yet to be seen. Yardsigns and stickers don't vote. If the people behind the wheels and the front doors come out and work to get the vote out, and the campaign does its part, we have a chance.

[smirkymonkey]

13. I also have a theory that W*/Cheney supporters are

too afraid to show their support in public.

Paper tigers.

[TahitiNut]

18. I'm reminded/haunted by 1980.

No poll foresaw Reagan's winning margin. It was the (as they were later called) 'Reagan Democrats' who were stealthy in the polling and open acknowledgement of support for Reagan/Bush. (There may have also been some ballot manipulation.) A similar Nationalistic fervor had the psychopatriots' spittle at a full foam, with the so-called 'hostage crisis' in Iran.

The polling we're seeing perplexews me. It's not ringing true somehow.

[Booster]

24. Regarding the polling, I read either here or in the newspaper

that they are only polling people who actually answer the phone and they are not polling anyone with a cell phone. It seems a lot of younger people only have cell phones so there is a huge number of people from those 2 categories that they are missing; I am one - I never answer the phone without the machine picking it up first and I can tell you that in the last couple of months I have had an enormous number of hangups. Don't believe the polls.

[TahitiNut]

25. It's true that cell-phones aren't called

It's also true that pollsters encounter something like 60-65% no-answer or refusals. People with more than one land-line (who can afford it) clearly have a higher likelihood of getting a call. They also take the demographics of the respondents and, at least as a part of their professional (for pay) service, 'balance' the responses by known demographics over the scope pf the poll (state or national). The right is (strongly) rumored to engage in 'poll-busting' - answering demographics questions falsely and then skewing the compiled results.

There's something else going on though - at least that's how it 'feels.'