This involves a pretty unfortunate series of comedic-if-they-weren't-so-annoying events that happened today in Sarasota, Florida.
At the risk of coming off braggy, I have some experience in campaigns, but today served as an ugly new low for me. I am hoping for guidance and perhaps for someone to shed a little light on this abominable lack of decency.
Keith Fitzgerald, his campaign manager and I -- a volunteer -- were at the local farmer's market downtown doing what every decent candidate has ever done possibly in the history of either politics or farmer's markets: handing out literature. We found a very nice place on one side of Main Street to stand and hand out palm cards as folks walked by. This spot and this tactic had worked well for us in the past. People stopped before crossing the street, took palm cards, talked to Keith. Everything seemed like it was working out fine, bluebirds and sunshine, rainbows and lolipops. Fantastic. That's genius.
(Things go pretty quickly downhill after the jump. It involves Katherine Harris, believe it or not.)
So there's this guy -- I call him Blarney McMumbles, because he always seems to be talking to a little invisible leprechaun on his shoulder... yeah, it's totally creepy -- and almost totally unsurprisingly, he's got on a Katherine Harris T-shirt. Blarney is plainly scoping us out. Finally he musters the courage, such as it must've been, to snarl something at Keith's campaign manager, who also happens to be my wife. You bet your a-double-s he got a nasty look from me. Uncool, dude. So uncool.
Anyway, it's less than five minutes later, and one of the market organizers approaches us. He tells us that "the city doesn't want us standing there. We have to walk if we want to hand our stuff out."
Okay, well it's not true, first of all. We had been standing there just a weekend or two before with four police officers on the other corner, and none of them said a word.
Second, we weren't blocking anything. We weren't in the way of anyone or anything. We didn't force any palm cards into anyone's unwitting hand.
Well, I know what you're going to say. You're going to say that either we should've stayed to fight it and made a fuss, or I should just shut up about it and move on.
Either of those answers might be fair, sure. But we'd been there for a long time, anyway, handed out plenty of cards. And there was more work to be done. So we walked for a bit, then left.
The truth is, it gets worse. Later in the evening (in fact, just mere hours ago), the
Hispanic/Latino Coalition sponsored their First Annual Hispanic Latino Festival. Right in the very same spot where the farmer's sell their wares. Exactly the same spot, matter of fact.
Keith and I and Duncan went down there right when it started, 5:00pm. Again, to pass out palm cards and give folks an opportunity to meet the candidate. It was a party atmospehere, and there weren't a lot of takers, to tell you the truth, but we felt it was important to be there. The visibility at a community even like this seemed worth it, certainly like the right thing to do.
Until one of the organizers came up and asked us -- in fact, informed us -- that we could *not* continue to hand out the palm cards. That we were *prohibited* from doing so.
Just in case you don't have the picture, let me tell you, this is a street festival, people. There's a stage in the middle of the road. People cooking good food in stands and booths. People selling things. This was a public place, there's no question about it.
And this nice lady was telling us that we were *prohibited* from handing out political flyers. In public. Seemed wrong, and Duncan said so. In very clear terms. The oragnizer said the political parties had contacted her and asked for space at the event and she'd said no. The organizer lady -- who seemed very angry for someone in the midst of a festival -- insisted we cease and disist. The truth is, she caught us on the corner as we were leaving, Keith talking to one last supporter. It had been a long day, the crowd wasn't very receptive to political literature, and so we left, feeling fairly angry.
I'd like to say first on my own behalf that the next time someone from the Hispanic community complains that Democrats don't reach out, refer them to the the Hispanic/Latino Coalition.
Second, it has not gone unnoticed by me that folks aren't very engaged in politics and government and that's troubling. But there seems to be a sort of active resistance to citizenship and being informed here.
Dude, where's my First Amendment?
The campaign Keith is running is about putting citizens back in charge of their government, about empowering people, about an informed electorate acting in their own best interest.
Please, someone in the DKos community, tell me: how do we do that if we can't speak up?
Thanks.
bjk