Guys, signs don’t vote.

I was just going to make a quick update to the previous post, but then I witnessed what has the wacky wing of the Higgins campaign (note my assumption that there is an as-yet undiscovered wing) so scared of Malcolm Baldwin, and why the resulting implosion shows no sign of ending.

The previous post began by calling attention to this comment outing embarrassing Higgins campaigner David LaRock, who was upset at the number of Malcolm Baldwin yard signs next to Mike Chapman signs.

[David] LaRock suggest [sic] Mike go around and take down the signs posted next to Baldwin signs..

Now there’s this admission from the other one, Sally Mann:

Most of the signs are gone now.

Ok, I just swung through Hamilton on my way home, and if “most of the signs are gone now,” I have to ask how many were there before. Just on the main drag I counted five or six yards with both Baldwin and Chapman signs. All but one had no other signs that would help identify the owner as either a Republican or Democratic crossover voter (one also had a Shawn Mitchell sign). One of them was the home of a friend who is solidly Independent, so that’s not much help.

Keep in mind that these geniuses are demanding that the Chapman signs be “taken down.” The signs of their own guy. The Republican. I tried to look at those signs together and think the way they do, just as an experiment, and I couldn’t do it. I could only think what a great thing it is that a bunch of people who are voting for a Republican also think highly enough of Malcolm Baldwin that they’re voting for him, too.

Sally Mann continues her comment with this outstanding whopper (which she’s apparently also been trying to plant here and there as an ‘anonymous’ rumor):

Peeple [sic] are saying the Weintraubs* are managing Baldwin’s campaign, and put up the signs in the middle of the night– as a stunt before the big walk– some signs were placed without permission.

(*The idea of “the Weintraubs” managing a campaign is pretty preposterous, except that, well, we’re talking about Sally Mann. -Epl)

I thought I was just being fair when I was careful to say that I didn’t think LaRock had been talking about taking yard signs from private property. Maybe I was being far too charitable. Sally goes on to state explicitly that the offending Chapman signs were removed from the private property of Democrats, because, she “explains”:

Some people who allowed signs thought that Chapman was a Democrat, endorsed by Malcolm Baldwin, and when they found he was an R, they took the sign down!

I guess that’s possible. I have no way of knowing for sure. But possible isn’t the same as likely, and it certainly isn’t the same as true. The fact is that Malcolm has endorsed Mr. Chapman – the endorsement is prominent on his website – and it seems very unlikely that this endorsement would not be having a substantial effect on the Sheriff’s race in Catoctin. It seems more likely that most Democrats with both Baldwin and Chapman yard signs are well aware that Chapman is a Republican, and that in reality we are all choosing a Sheriff from among three Republicans. I just find it unlikely that Democrats in Catoctin are behaving in the way that Sally Mann describes – it sounds more like a projection of Sally Mann. And unless she and the other Higgins operatives are saying that they visited the homes of Democrats to relieve them of their Chapman signs, I don’t know how she would have come by this knowledge.

The whole thing rings pretty false. If it’s true that Sally Mann and her friends set things straight for all those supposedly naive Democrats with Chapman signs, then why does she say that the signs ended up in the trash? Shouldn’t they have recovered the signs and returned them to the Chapman campaign? And if it wasn’t them, how can they claim knowledge of what these people thought? Maybe the signs were taken during the night by elves, and Sally and her friends can read minds. Hey, it’s possible. After all, Chapman’s signs are “confusing” and “green.”

Here are some other possibilities that explain the signs I saw:
1) The signs that are “mostly gone now” were taken without the property owners’ consent, and those owners have replaced the signs.
2) Sally & friends successfully got rid of all the Chapman signs in “naive Democrats” yards, and the remaining sign pairs that I saw this afternoon were in the yards of Republicans crossing over to vote for Baldwin.
3) Sally made the whole thing up.

What’s your theory?

Maybe someone out there has first hand knowledge of these alleged events and can help us solve this mystery.

I think I get the important part, though. The belief expressed over and over in these comments is that casual observers will associate the two signs and mistakenly think that there’s a Democratic Sheriff’s candidate – it’s expressly not that some people might mistakenly think that Baldwin is the Republican candidate. These clownshoes aren’t concerned about a misunderstanding that might actually hurt the Republican candidate, in other words. That’s not really their problem. Their problem is that they are so unable to accept the broad crossover support for Malcolm Baldwin – which I think is there precisely because he’s the kind of guy who would endorse someone from the other party if he thinks they’re the best one for the job – that they would rather invent a wild conspiracy theory that doesn’t even make sense and attack their own candidate than attempt to deal with the truth.

13 thoughts on “Guys, signs don’t vote.

  1. Epluribusunum Post author

    I can’t remember the last time I saw such childish behavior by an adult in public. Does this poor Sally Mann person really not understand that Malcolm endorsed Mike Chapman, and that the endorsement is on the front page of his website? How can she expect to be taken seriously by anyone when she says things like this?

    Did Malcolm “ask” for a sign? Ha! No. He got someone to secretly get one for him, like maybe a blogger we know who is helping with his strategy and messaging?

    Malcolm is not honsetly reaching across the aisle, he asked someone else to secretly get the signs for him, without telling Chapman…

    That’s right, the Catoctin candidate had to get someone to secretly get a sign for him, so he could show support for another candidate that he endorsed. Who talks this way? No offense intended to young people who would never behave like this, but I really feel like I’m watching an over-tired immature middle schooler having a meltdown – and it just keeps getting worse.

  2. BlackOut

    I stand correct. I should have said as far as I know, Sally Mann has been banned from every blog in Loudoun County that she has posted on without a fake name.

    Thanks for the help.

  3. BlackOut

    Right on Eric. Luckily for her own protection she’s been banned from every blog in Loudoun County. Makes it tougher for her to get herself into trouble. I can’t believe I am feeling empathy for the hate merchant Greg L, as I am sure he’s being bombarded by “S.” as we speak.

  4. Eric the 1/2 troll

    “3) “S.” made the whole thing up.”

    While past performance is not indicative of future results, its a pretty good bet in this case given the person involved.

  5. BlackOut

    I’d like to provide more logic to the attacks but frankly, I think it just comes down to a yearning for street cred that they don’t have. It baffles me that they are attacking the Republican candidate because of a vindictive motive towards other bloggers.

    It would make more logic to say that these signs actually talk to each other in the middle of the night and walk around commuting adultery. Sorta a pixar type dynamic with out the cuteness.

  6. Epluribusunum Post author

    The Higgins/Black people are escalating their attacks on Chapman now, with comments like this:

    Or does it say something about Mike? Do you, a very committed democrat and Black hater, know something about Mike that the rest of us don’t know? I sure hope not!

    The “democrat” being addressed is a long-time Republican activist who feels that Dick Black is too extreme and therefore ineffective.

  7. DC Beltway Bandit

    Sometimes people just need to realize you can’t fix stupid.

    Seriously how stupid can these people be. Manufacturing a “yard sign” controversy that directly impacts the Republican Candidate for Sheriff, that’s pretty stupid.

  8. Epluribusunum Post author

    The Committee for Yard Sign Purity is coming for you! I also saw in my travels yesterday the following forbidden pairings: Higgins/Mitchell, Burton/Chapman, Wexton/Mitchell/Chapman.

    In the approved/permitted column, a number of Higgins/Black.

  9. Liz Miller

    I’m gonna be putting a Chapman sign in our yard. So it’ll be Keirce-Wexton-Mitchell-Ohneiser-Chapman. I wonder what those folks will think of THAT?

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