If part of your campaign strategy is stealing the political yard signs of your opponent note that Sunday, March 11th at 2:00 a.m. is when Daylight Savings Time begins. So remember to adjust the schedules for your Sign Stealing Teams appropriately.
And remind all your personnel that stealing political campaign signs is serious business and not just for ones average “monkeywrencher” brought in from Sarasota for a few days. Theft and vandalizing of political yard signs IS A CRIME and is taken very seriously by local law enforcement.
And once again, in the interest of public education, Election Day is March 13th. Here is what you, as a member of the public, need to know about political Free Speech. Be very critical of political mailers!
Don’t hesitate to call a candidate or their campaign organization and say, “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!”
It’s that time again for the candidates and campaigns to begin sending out political mailers. Go positive? Go negative? How many puppies? Don’t forget the kids. And most importantly, timing is everything!
But! As you’ll find out below, mailers can
also backfire in a very big way.
There’s a lot of leeway and very few rules political mailers have to follow because political speech is FREE SPEECH, protected by the First Amendment. Except for requiring a disclaimer in small 6′ gray-scale type along the bottom below the union bug, “Political advertisement paid for. . .”, little else is required on a political mailer delivered to your mailbox.
Do they have to be true? No. Do mailers
even have to be factual? No.
Often though, mailers follow the logical fallacy,
A and B so therefore, C (see image below)
For example,
A “Amoroso sent $5 million to an industrial park”
B “. . . neighborhood roads fall to ruin”
C Vote for ■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■. Don’t vote for Andy Amoroso.
This is an actual mailer sent out just prior
to the elections in March 2016.
to the elections in March 2016.
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| Learn more about this mailer using this link. This will go down as likely the silliest mailer in Lake Worth political history. It was called the “$5 million mystery”. |
A few days after this mailer was dropped in mailboxes is when the fun started and people started asking things like, “Where’s Waldo?” about the $5 million. One of the jokes was Commissioner Amoroso buried the mystery money in the Park of Commerce, stuffing it down a Gopher tortoise hole. There were a lot of other funny jokes, too.
A week after this political mailer was sent out Amoroso went on to win his re-election by a huge landslide. And for several weeks afterward this “$5 million mystery” continued to draw laughs.
And the latest is. . .
Two years later Amoroso was unopposed in his 2017/2018 re-election bid. No one stepped up to challenge him and he’ll serve another term on the City Commission. However this time, following the referendum that passed in March 2017, Amoroso will serve a 3 year term instead of two years as it had been previously.
The lesson is this, political mailers can
backfire in a big way.
“Leading the Fight to Lower Electric Bills”?
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| In an ironic twist, because electric rates continued to spike after Cara Jennings was re-elected in 2008, a lot of people switched over to clean, affordable, and the Green choice: Natural Gas (for cooking, drying clothes, and hot water too). |
![Dr. W. H. Cotton’s ode: “Oh, My Lake Worth, Florida!” [circa 1920].](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yhHyCn84ZIQ/WezjlEL-0tI/AAAAAAAAPZ4/CzkhriK6zpEJJ3d9Je1495d49gIhnMlxACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/LakeWorthPioneers.JPG)
