I took another drive through my neighborhood, making sure I covered every block this time, to get an updated yard sign count. With a week to go before the election, the count stands 163 for Kerry, and 33 for Bush. That’s actually a pretty substantial improvement for Bush since last time – the new signs tally as 89 Kerry, 27 Bush, taking the ratio from over 12-1 to just under 5-1. That’s also still a better performance for the Democratic ticket in my highly Democratic neighborhood than in 2000, and from what I can tell there’s just a heck of a lot more signs overall.
A few notes:
– I didn’t see the Michael Badnarik sign this time around, but I did see one lonely sign for Green Party candidate David Cobb.
– Other candidates for whom I saw signs were Democrats Richard Morrison, John Martinez, Jim Dougherty (none of whom would represent this neighborhood, as their districts are elsewhere), Sheila Jackson Lee, Kathy Stone, Bruce Mosier, Jim Sharp, and Dale Gorczynski; Republicans Ted Poe (also not representing this area; typically, the sign in question read “Bush/Cheney/Poe”, with Poe’s name barely visible on the bottom), Chuck Rosenthal, Sharon McCally, and Riecke Baumann; and Libertarian Congressional candidate Brent Sullivan (running against Jackson Lee, who actually does represent this area). There were in fact quite a few signs for Jim Sharp, which is not too surprising since he lives here. Though I could probably infer support for one Presidential candidate or the other via these signs, I didn’t count a house unless it had a genuine Kerry or Bush placard.
– I saw exactly one house with a sign for the city propositions (it advocated a vote for Prop 2). Two hundred plus houses with campaign signs, and one having anything to do with the election that will have the biggest impact on all of them. That’s what I call confusion.
Did you catch the Badnarik TV ad here in Houston? I’m pretty sure it’s a local ad. Basically the pitch was “sure both the Dems and the ‘Pubs suck, but if you want a real protest vote against Bush, vote for me, not that Green fellow”.
Of course, he never mentions that to protest Bush you could just vote for Kerry instead.
Nope, I missed it. Too bad, sounds like a funny spot.
Of course, [the Badnarik campaign] never mentions that to protest Bush you could just vote for Kerry instead.
Well, true, you could vote for Kerry to protest Bush, but what there is of the Badnarik ad campaign is specifically targeted at disgruntled conservatives who believe Bush has been anything “but” conservative. These are people who will NOT, under any circumstance, vote for Kerry.
He’s given us larger government (expanding it even more than Clinton). He’s increased the deficit to record levels. He’s eroded personal liberties with the Patriot Act and other abominations. He’s pushing for a more evangelical government, or at least more government involvement in the evangelical.
There’s nothing “conservative” about these things. And it is on these issues that the Libertarians are campaigning against Bush. The pitch is very targeted at smaller-government conservatives and socially progressive Republicans, both of whom have plenty of reasons to feel like their principles have been betrayed by the White House. Those are, after all, the type of folks most likely to be sympathetic to libertarianism.
There’s actually some talk that the Badnarik campaign wants to take enough votes from Bush in contested states to swing it to Kerry, a la Nader in 2000.