I Didn’t Get the Thieves and Vandals Endorsement
I have been getting a LOT of endorsements from lots of groups in the past few weeks. (See this page for the list - but check back frequently, as it is getting longer every day!) One group that seems to NOT like me, though, is the thieves and vandals of District 35. (Do they have a union yet?)
Last night, after attending the Candidate Forum at Glenaire Retirement Community in Cary and the College Republicans meeting at NC State with my son, I returned home to find the campaign signs in my yard vandalized. Someone had damaged a good number of the signs that I have along the front of my yard. Since my wife and daughter were away at the fair, working at the GOP booth, nobody was home for a few hours. And a few hours of darkness was all that it took for the vandals to knock over, tear up, and otherwise damage my signs. Of course, I went back and replaced everything with new signs.
While I was still out in the yard, I noticed a couple of vehicles driving by slowly. Since I live on the dead end of a road, cars that do not belong here stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. Two of them would drive up the street, and then drive back down. They looked like they were thinking about re-vandalizing the signs, but thought the better of doing anything while we were home. So, not only do we have vandals, but we have vandals who are cowards. Who apparently endorse my opponent by their actions.
I have also had a bunch of my signs stolen. I know where I put them up, and they are right next to signs from other candidates, even other Republican candidates, that remain untouched. Some thief or a group of thieves has been stealing them in a somewhat organized fashion. That’s OK - I realized that a subset of the sort of person who would support my opponent was the sort of person who has no respect for other people’s property. So, I built in an overage into our sign budget, and had a second batch of signs ready for this eventuality. So we soldier on, replacing the signs, and knowing that we are doing the right thing.
There is a funny thing about doing the right thing - it upsets some folks! But since I have the courage of my convictions, I accept the fact that the thieves and vandals (and other criminals) don’t like my tough on crime stances that are at odds with my lawyer opponent. But I know how to deal with criminals. I have locked up enough criminals (including thieves and vandals) back when I was a street cop. I know their type.
But what I don’t know is why anyone would want to have anything to do with these people. I call on my opponent to run a clean campaign, and to tell her folks to quit stealing and vandalizing.
And it also was a good thing for the sign vandals at my house that they did not come by when I was around. I certainly think that it is in their best interests not to do that.
UPDATE: Here is a blog post I wrote for Katy’s Conservative Corner, about some sign stealing and other shenanigans last year in the Cary Town Council races.
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