CSP’s Obsession with One Sign
October 17, 2010
This is an amazing story of just how desperate and out of touch CSP and her campaign are with a little over 2 weeks to go until Election Day. Their latest complaint? A 4×8 sign. They made so much of an issue out of it that the story made its way into a UL news story today (print edition). At its best its an issue over free speech and also the campaigns infatuation with one man’s sign over earning votes and focusing on the issues that are important to Granite Staters.
A local man is questioning whether his free speech rights were violated yesterday when police confiscated his Carol Shea-Porter election sign, which the man altered with a critical message. Bob Nickerson, a small business owner who lives on Main Street, said he obtained the large sign from the Congresswoman’s Manchester campaign office. He then placed his own words over parts of the sign to make it read: “Dump Shea-Porter out of Congress … Nancy Pelosi’s lap dog.”
Nickerson e-mailed Shea-Porter’s campaign a photo of the sign, which had been placed on his antique 1951 Ford pickup truck outside his home and business. It apparently didn’t take long for the campaign to get worked up.
Someone from the Democrat’s campaign contacted police, which eventually agreed to confiscate the sign after being convinced the defacement violated a law against altering political signs, according to Nickerson.
“If I had not given up the sign, they would have charged me,” Nickerson said.
So, CSP’s campaign answer to someone who said something they didn’t like? Silence him and have the police confiscate his sign. The lengths that CSP’s campaign went though is down right out of line, and show their perverse infatuation with this sign.
Nickerson said the sign was taken by police at his business near his home about 3 p.m. yesterday, while someone from the Shea-Porter campaign took pictures.
“Apparently that’s the guy who was following the police around all day,” Nickerson said.
While, they spent the time to track down and have the police confiscate the sign, they could have been reaching out to voters and working on the issues that are most important to Granite Staters. It is also sad that CSP’s campaign felt it necessary to spend the time and energy to silence this one man.
New Hampshire
Oct 17, 2010
It’s something their mentor, George Soros would do after all.. squelch free speech.
What right did they have to take this sign?
Tweets that mention CSP’s Obsession with One Sign: #RedHamp -- Topsy.com
Oct 17, 2010
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Red Hampshire, NHTeaPartyCoalition. NHTeaPartyCoalition said: RT @RedHampshire: CSP’s Obsession with One Sign: http://bit.ly/cWCBTm #RedHamp [...]
TimothyHorrigan
Oct 17, 2010
The issue isn’t Mr Nickerson’s free speech rights. The problem is that he obtained the sign under fasle pretenses.
The Pelosi thing isn’t going to hurt Shea-Porter that much, since no one outside the GOP echo chamber hates Nancy Pelosi. Most people don’t even know why they are supposed to hate her. There are plenty of voters who don’t know who she is: in normal times, the Speaker of House is not a household name. Even now, the identity of the Speaker of the House is information which is stored way in the back of the average person’s brain.
No one knew who the previous Speaker (Dennis Hastert) was, for example. A sign saying “Dump Jeb Bradley; Hastert’s Lap Dog”: would have been totally ineffective. (Ditto for an attack ad with unflattering pictures of Bradley & Hastert in the same frame.) This sign is only slightly less ineffective.
Matt Suermann
Oct 17, 2010
Former Rep. Horrigan,
I think you’re under estimating how Nancy Pelosi has become the poster child of what is wrong with the Democrat controlled House. Look at the polling data, she’s a drag for CSP and is disliked nationwide.
NH voters are savy and understand the CSP and Hodes have voted in lockstep with Pelosi, not with New Hampshire. They have become the Inside the Beltway politicians that they ran against in 2006.
Matt Suermann
Oct 17, 2010
Also, if voters aren’t paying attention to Pelosi then why are Democrats highlighting the fact that they will not support her for speaker?
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/16/endangered-house-democrats-campaign-pelosi/
Grant Bosse
Oct 17, 2010
I have no idea what law the police were cited when they confiscated this man’s property, which was given to him by the Carol Shea-Porter campaign. Perhaps, they were relying on RSA 664:17, which reads in part:
“No person shall remove, deface, or knowingly destroy any political advertising which is placed on or affixed to public property or any private property except the owner of the property, persons authorized by the owner of the property, or a law enforcement officer removing improper advertising.”
Of course, Nickerson is the owner of the property, so there was no violation of statute. I don’t know what possible authority the Sandown Police were using when they took the man’s sign, but it looks like they owe him an apology, and his sign back. The Shea-Porter campaign could have asked what he wanted to do with it before giving him a sign, but the idea that the campaign owns the signs it gives away and can control it after it gives one away is absurd.
fairmind
Oct 17, 2010
horrigan, you should have never said what you said about people not knowing who pelosi is, I used to think you had some smarts and I believe I even defended your stupidity awhile back, but after your statement above, I have changed my mind, you are an idiot, you are a stupid politcal hack and you have no right to hold any political seat after that very stupid comment, I will buy the guy a new sign out of my own pocket and pay for his gas for the next two weeks to drive that message around cd1, you should be ashamed of yourself you stupid ultra liberal jacka**, do you have any clue how many people hate pelosi? My goodness man have you lost your mind?
MissDaisy
Oct 17, 2010
Are you kidding? People don’t know who Nancy “we have to pass the bill in order to find out what’s in it” Pelosi. Pelosi’s recent decision to cast the deciding vote in favor of the House’s early recess and avoid any debate on the Bush tax cuts before the Nov. election was not only cowardly and completely self-serving, it was 100% against the best interests of NH and the entire country. And, Carol Shea-Porter voted right along with Pelosi. That vote alone should cost them both their Congressional careers.
mer
Oct 18, 2010
A question about campaign signs, are they given freely to people or “a donation of $25 gets you this small sign, $50 gets you the next one up”? If for a donation, then it would seem as if he bought it (unless you are paying for a “license to display”). If he bought it, he should be able to do what he wants with it.
If you don’t have to pay for them, did he just walk in and say “can I have one of these signs?” and was told “yes, go ahead”? Unless specifically asked something like “do you want a sign because you support CSP”, I don’t see how it is “false pretenses”.
Also, it seems as if his use falls under “Fair Use”, which has exceptions for parody, education, satire.
Bruce MacMahon
Oct 18, 2010
Of course, by getting the police involved and making a news story out of it, there’s now a chance that the picture will go viral, and the sign will be seen by thousands more people than it would have been if the guy was left alone and allowed to keep his sign.
Then again, I never accused CSP of being overly brilliant.
Fergus Cullen
Oct 18, 2010
CSP and her staff do have paranoia when it comes to campaign signs. From Fosters, Sunday Nov 2 2008 (2 days before the election): “Rep. Carol Shea-Porter was driving on Route 125 in Barrington on Sunday when she saw a car with a McCain-Palin sticker on it pull over to the side of the road, pick up one of her campaign signs and throw it in a Dumpster. The campaign plans to file a complaint with police.” (after calling the newspaper)
But there was more to the story: Turned out what happened was, an employee at a major employer (Turbocam) showed up to work to find CSP signs placed, without the business’s permission, on their property, so he removed the signs. CSP happened to be driving by when it happened, stopped to follow/watch the guy, and freaked out.
Reminds me of The Kinks’ classic, “Paranoia Self Destroyer”
TimothyHorrigan
Oct 18, 2010
There are signs up this year on that same site, but none of hers.
TimothyHorrigan
Oct 18, 2010
About the Bush tax cuts: those expiration dates were put in by the Republicans. And why? Because otherwise the budget wouldn’t have balanced. And the tax cuts will still blow a hole in the deficit.
Grant Bosse
Oct 18, 2010
Former Representative Horrigan,
That’s just wrong. You don’t know what you’re talking about. The ten-year expiration was put in place in order to move the tax cuts through reconciliation. Any bill with a fiscal impact beyond ten years couldn’t have been passed through this procedure, with both parties have used increasingly over the past decade. Next time, please take the time to bring some facts to the party.
Starfire
Oct 18, 2010
Bruce is right. It has been fun sending this link out to several sites.
New Hampshire
Oct 18, 2010
Hey Horrigan, where were you complaining when sign-stealing criminal and illegal voter Geoff Wetrosky was caught with dozens of Frank Guinta signs in his trunk, that he eventually brought back to Kathy Sullivan’s house?
TimothyHorrigan
Oct 18, 2010
I never heard about the incident. I never heard of Geoff Wetrosky either, although I do know who Kathy Sullivan is.
Starfire
Oct 18, 2010
New Hampshire, don’t confuse TH with facts… he likes staying in the dark. Staying in the dark allows him plausible denial-ability.
Rick
Oct 19, 2010
@Tim Horrigan
RSA 664:17 contains seven components within the specific statute. That statute governs the placement of political advertising and regardless of where said advertising is placed, the statute precludes all persons except town officials and property owners from removing it. The intent of this is to prevent candidates from removing opponents signs under the pretext of wrong or illegal placement. the component, “or a law enforcement officer removing improper advertising…”is misapplied “Improper” describes political advertising that is objectionable in content based on universally accepted societal standards…i.e. obscene, pornographic racist…those standards generally deemed “improper” (even then, LE encroaches on a free speech component) CSP’s lackies and hacks finding the message improper, does not mean the whole community finds it improper.
As for the sign, this statute provides no enforcement component for the arbitrary removal of the sign. Mr. Nickerson went to CSP headquarters…asked for the signs…and those folks were happy to oblige. If they seek to assert a claim on the sign, that would be a “property” claim, and reliance on 664:17 as the basis for removal is a gross misuse of the statute and its intent.
At best, the dispensing of campaign signs at best falls within the purview of a bailment. But that is going to be hard to argue unless they are willing to state that some campaign minion drives around and collects up the signs.
Moller telling us that the sign is the property of the campaign and is collected thereafter by the campaign is a bald-faced lie and any citizen who goes to a drop-off center after an election knows it.
They don’t collect up signs after an election..few people do. Bottom line here is CSP’s people saw an opportunity to harass an opposition citizen and they errantly seized it, thus pissing more people off. Squashing Free Speech was all this was about.
Look at it another way….The signs were roughly 40-50 bucks apiece. justapose that cost against CSP campaign minions driving to Sandown and following the Police around all day long until 3:30-4 when the cops finally confiscated the sign. And that idiot makes a value and property claim? PLEASE
TimothyHorrigan
Oct 20, 2010
From what I have heard this uproar is a fight between local party activists. Rep. Shea-Porter is not “obsessed” with this. The law is somewhat vague on this issue, but the Democrats are not totally off-base. I doubt anyone is going to jail over this.
Something which may sound absurd to the RedHampshire crowd is this: there are some Democrats who sincerely think the alteration of this sign was harassment.
As for the statement about “few” campaigns taking down their signs after the election, that comes as news to the Strafford County Democrats who go out every biennium and pick up signs, returning them to a central drop off point for reuse two years hence. We’re thrifty Yankees in Strafford County: we’re not from Jersey.
Grant Bosse
Oct 20, 2010
The law is not vague. The law clearly does not apply. In lacking a statute prohibiting the activity is question, the police have absolutely no authority to confiscate someone’s property. If Carol Shea-Porter thinks she has a claim on the sign as her property, she can go to small claims court, where a judge would laugh at her. Instead, her campaign decided to improperly use the police to harass a critic who was saying something she didn’t like.
Tom Flaherty
Oct 20, 2010
Having some fun with CSP and her sign-obsession…play along if you like.
http://granitegrok.com/blog/2010/10/lets_deface_a_carolshea_porter_sign_cont.html