Signs Of the Times

Our work at the Forks of the Delaware Gun Show in Allentown was very worthwhile.  On Thursday, Bitter drove out to just shy of Harrisburg to rendezvous at an undesclosed secret location with one of the McCain campaign staffers.  We were given 500 McCain-Palin lawn signs, and managed to hand every single one of them out.  I was doing almost nothing but slipping the vinyl signs onto the metal bracket all day long.  There were times when people were grabbing them so fast I had a line waiting for me to put more together.  It was madness.  We signed up several dozen new volunteers, some came from as far as Ohio, who need help just as much as Pennsylvania does.  We were happy to sign them up, and pass their name on to the folks in Ohio.

About noon Saturday I started to hear people getting signs saying, “We can’t get these in New Jersey.” and “We looked all over but nobody in New York has them.”  I didn’t mind handing over a sign here and a sign there to someone from New Jersey or New York, but we can’t really have Long Island and North Jersey being peppered with McCain-Palin signs that said “Paid for by the Republican Federal Committee of Pennsylvania” on the bottom.  We started rationing signs to the out-of-staters.  Had a few people argue, “What does it matter what state it goes to?” who I’m guessing don’t understand how the Electoral College works. The next day we had to restrict them to Pennsylvania residents only.  By the middle of Sunday, we were out of signs.  I hated having to tell out of staters no.  If they are enthusiastic about the ticket you don’t want to throw a wet blanket on them, but the fact is a sign going to New York or New Jersey is a waste of a limited resource.  Those states are solid Blue, and we have a chance to turn Pennsylvania red this election.  I was happy most people were understanding about the need to keep the signs in-state.

A few people and their stories are surely a sign of the times, with electoral politics just getting outright nasty.  I had dozens folks come up to us looking for a sign because the one they had put out was either stolen, destroyed or defaced.  I guess Obama supporters motto is “If you can’t win fair, win through theft, vandalism and tresspassing.  It’s the Chicago Way!”  Our suggestion was to put vaseline on the parts of the sign that people would have to grab to pull it out of the ground.  One woman came in with a thick New York accent, asking if she had wandered into a McCain party, screeching loudly, “McCain is a drain on the brain.”  Once this woman realized she was at an antique gun show, rather than just an antique show, she decided to make a rather loud and obnoxious exit, yelling at me that “Sarah Palin owght to go back to Alaska on a dawg sled, pulling the sled becawse she’s a dawg,” followed by various other epitaphs. The woman looked like Amy Winehouse hit by a truck, so has obviously not heard about glass houses and stones. As much as gun owners can be frustrating at times, on the whole our people have better manners.

But before we get two congratulatory, there are at least three people in the tri-state area (Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York) who do not yet realize that it’s not socially acceptable to say “There’s no way I’m voting for that n****r!” in a public place, to people who you don’t know, especially referring to a United States Senator.  Not that it’s really acceptable in private either, but you’d expect even the ignorant would realize by now we don’t live in that world anymore, and it’s shameful we ever did.  Once someone starts down that road, you stop talking to them, and move them along.  This isn’t someone who’s help you want.  There are plenty of reasons not to vote for Obama, but race isn’t one of them.