The "Smear Boat" crowd strikes again!

[trof]

Just got this e-mail from a friend in Pensacola.

Kerry signs stolen, trashed

August, 24, 2004
Steve Mraz

@PensacolaNewsJournal.com

Local supporters of U.S. Sen. John Kerry's presidential bid are learning the hard way that Northwest Florida is George Bush country.



A Kerry/Edwards campaign sign on Bayou Boulevard shows the marks of a vandal. “We’re leaving it up because people who are undecided will say ‘How could anybody do that,’ ” said Jerry Holt, Panhandle for Kerry chairman.
Photo by Gary [e-mail]

Yard signs promoting the Democratic presidential candidate and running mate John Edwards have been stolen and vandalized by the hundreds.

In Pensacola's East Hill neighborhood, Kerry supporters are hanging their signs from trees to keep them from being stolen. Early Sunday morning in the Cordova Park neighborhood, 27 pro-Kerry signs were stolen in what Panhandle for Kerry Chairman Jerry Holt called a "surgical strike."

The situation has become so bad that Panhandle for Kerry organizers met with Pensacola Police Capt. Dickie Johnston Monday.

"The police promised to increase patrols, and without giving away the store, we're going to have our own neighborhood watches," Holt said.

Panhandle for Kerry has distributed almost 3,400 signs to date and estimates about 350 have been stolen.

East Hill resident Anne Bennett had four Kerry signs stolen from her front yard before putting out a homemade sign that read "Nice people don't steal or vandalize." In a theft that Bennett refers to as "brazen in the first order," vandals plucked the sign from her front yard around 2 p.m. one sunny day.

Now, to thwart the thieves, Bennett hung her Kerry sign from a pine tree limb 15 feet in the air.

"This has to do with the fundamental mind set that has developed in our community and country that you either think like I do or you are wrong," she said. "It's like you don't have a right to participate in the public debate unless you are in the majority, and that is not one of the principles on which our country was founded."

If caught stealing signs, offenders could be arrested for petty theft or criminal mischief, said Bonnie Jones, Escambia County supervisor of elections.

But Panhandle for Kerry actually is gaining support from signs snatchings, Holt said. For every yard sign that goes missing, three more people want signs because it angers them, he said.

A Kerry/Edwards yard sign on Bayou Boulevard recently had the word "Bush" spray-painted across it.

"We're leaving that sign up because people who are undecided will say, 'How could anybody do that,' " Holt said.

Holt, who thinks the sign stealers are just odd people not affiliated with the local Republican Party, said the offenders should stop.

"We have the availability, the funds and the will to replace every sign when we find out it's missing," he said.

[havocmom]

1. So, many bush* supporters really are criminals and thugs

pass it around

[snippy]

5. Just like Bush himself. n/t

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Why not call them liars?

They're liars.

Read the NYT article, the Chi Trib Rood piece, any number of other reports. They're liars.

[adolf batwing]

7. of course they are liars

stupid liars but they are vets and they will drape themselves around the flag and cause a more gorilla like panic as opposed to human, as they play the victimized vietnam vet. these guys have the john wayne code. they have grass-root level sympathies when they are playing out of their league and losing. they lose the battle but are helping win the war for the other side. don't fight every battle. as nietzsche said, save yourself for a worthy enemy.

[snippy]

4. Why not call proven liars what they are? Liars.

FIRE THE LIAR

[Ducks In A Row]

They're actually cowards and liars.

[rumguy]

6. Wingnuts

They really are a braindead bunch.