HollisterFreelance.com | Partisan tension in SBC

Partisan tension in SBC

Oct 24, 2004
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Hollister - A political frenzy spurred by the upcoming presidential election that has commanded nationwide attention has made its way to San Benito County, with the destruction and theft of Republican presidential campaign signs.

Sometime between Oct. 12 and Oct. 16 unknown suspects vandalized a large Bush/Cheney campaign sign posted in the 700 block of McCray Street, spraying vulgarities denouncing the president, according to a Hollister police report.

Volunteers found the sign on Saturday, Oct. 16 and immediately took it down, said Jeannie Glass, San Benito County Republican Party volunteer.

Including several obscenities splashed across Bush and Cheney's name, at the bottom the vandals sprayed the "F" word followed by the words Texas and Florida.

"To combine that word with Florida and Texas, someone understood the past election and where Bush is from, which is what made it interesting," Glass said. "It wasn't just kids."

Several days later they noticed there was also a foot print on the sign, which meant someone had taken the large 4-by-8-foot sign down, sprayed the vulgarities on it and then put it back up, she said.

Now the sign hangs in the front window of the local GOP headquarters on San Benito Street, with pieces of paper labeled "censored" across the swear words and "compliments of a Kerry supporter" taped to the top.

Other than some signs being blown over in the wind, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hasn't had any problems with their signs being stolen or vandalized, said Jeanie Wallace, San Benito County Central Committee chairperson.

Wallace said any inference that Democratic Party volunteers could have anything to do with the vandalism is "offensive and outrageous."

"Think what that would look like in the press. Even if we would consider doing something like that the political risk is ridiculous. People who do stuff like that are people who don't have anything to lose socially or politically," Wallace said. "I guess there's somebody out there who doesn't like President Bush and sees it as an appropriate way to express their disregard."

Besides the tarnished sign, several other large Bush signs have been spray-painted completely black, and others have been stolen, Glass said.

Glass said she's been a political activist since 1992, and she's never seen a campaign turn as dirty as this one has on a local level.

"Here in San Benito County we all know each other and we work hard to support our candidates, and to have somebody go to all this expense to destroy signs, it seems like they have too much time on their hands," she said.

While volunteers are unsure who's behind the vandalism, volunteer Reba Jones said it's someone who knows the political scene intimately.

"It's someone who likes John Kerry, let's put it that way," she said. "I wouldn't say it's the DNC, but you can come to your own conclusions."

Registrar John Hodges said complaints of vandalized or stolen campaign signs occur every election, but usually only to local signs - never to ones advertising state or national candidates.

And never to such a vulgar degree, he said.

"We've been pretty quiet - other than some locals who don't like something," he said. "As far as the 28th (Assembly District) and national ones, people respect those signs."

Jones wasn't sure what would prompt someone to deface the Bush campaign signs in that manner, except possibly jealously, she said.

"I think there's a lot of envy on the other side that we have worked as hard as we have and got such as large public profile," she said. "And they're riding around in their Winnebago from place to place and we've got this spacious building downtown."

Wallace said the Democrats chose a Winnebago so they could have a mobile headquarters, and that no one with the party is envious of the Republican's downtown location.

Wallace guessed that the accusations could have been directed toward her party because of "desperation" by the Republicans.

"Maybe the Republican committee can't imagine that individual people could have animosity toward their candidate," she said. "There has never been any discussion of anything even remotely related... about how to vandalize Republican signs. It's funny, but it's sad and pathetic."

Glass refuted the possibility of one or two individuals carrying out the crimes because of similar incidences occurring across the nation with vandalism, theft of signs and Republican headquarters being broken into, she said.

"It's just very suspect that there seems to be some type of organization in all the... efforts across the country to affect the election," Glass said. "Whether it's organized or a bunch of individuals, they're desperate because they see the polling numbers are not going their way. It doesn't take much imagination to see that desperation."

Erin Musgrave covers public safety for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637-5566, ext. 336 or emusgrave@freelancenews.com