|
|
|
| Mon, Nov. 09 - - Mobile - RSS | |
|
|
Club stakes out campaign sign
Theft, vandalism of campaign sign prompts Lake of the Woods club to post guard at Kerry-Edwards banner.Date published: 10/11/2004
Elections encourage political high jinks. Neighbors gently torment neighbors with political proselytizing, and teens goad one another into minor vandalism. And it's not unheard of in an election season for political signs to go missing. But when a 4- by 8-foot "Veterans for Kerry-Edwards" sign was stolen from its place of honor in front of Joe Broderick's hardware store on State Route 3, the Lake of the Woods Democratic Women's Club didn't think it was funny. It was a major theft, and the club members decided that it wouldn't happen a second time. While club chairwoman Angela Turvey went searching for a replacement sign, Anne Boyd organized a "night watch" to guard it. "We will be baby-sitting the new sign every night until Election Day," Boyd said. Volunteers are working two-hour shifts through the night, carefully out of sight of any miscreants. The volunteers are outfitted with cameras, cell phones and flashlights, and the next sign thief will be surprised with arrest. "We thought we needed to make a point," Boyd said. "This was done by mean-spirited and narrow-minded people. We're sure it wasn't done by children because the floodlights in front of the sign were unplugged, and the grommets holding the sign in place had been ripped out by someone very strong. And you need a truck to haul it away." Joe Broderick, a Korean War veteran, agreed. "If kids had been responsible, the electrical connections would not have been handled so carefully and the sign would have been defaced and tossed aside," he said. The Democratic women had to wait more than a week for a new sign, then had to pick it up from the Kerry-Edwards' Virginia Victory '04 headquarters in Richmond. It's been in place since Thursday and, so far, its guards haven't encountered any trouble. It hasn't been difficult to get volunteers. "We've been really helped by husbands and friends," Turvey said. "Even men and women who are not club members, even Republicans who are appalled by what happened, have volunteered to take a shift." So what do you do sitting in the dark in a parked car in the middle of the night? Boyd and her husband remarked that they hadn't had that experience in a long time. They said they just talked. To reach ROBIN KNEPPER: rknepper@earthlink.net
Read more stories about Orange Date published: 10/11/2004
|
 |
|||
|
|||
