Text 3811, 205 rader
Skriven 2004-10-19 12:43:52 av Alan Hess
Ärende: how can we stop
=======================
this crap by partisans?  It isn't necessary, and doesn't help whichever
candidate the idiots support.
*******

http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/lifestyle/bal-te.to.hostility19oct19,1,61
11324.story?coll=bal-pe-today

Election 2004: The home front

Emotions run high on Main St.
Politics: As the vote nears, dirty tricks get down to the grass roots.


By Ellen Gamerman
Sun National Staff

October 19, 2004

ALLENTOWN, Pa. - The King George Inn has survived in one way or the other since
the 18th century, when citizen-soldiers trained there for the Revolutionary
War, but now its owner wonders whether the historic landmark can live through a
thoroughly modern battle:

The 2004 election.

First came the people who tore down the Kerry-Edwards sign that owner Cliff
McDermott placed on the exterior. Then came the hate mail after the avid
Democrat put a new banner at the top of the restaurant, out of vandals' reach.

Things got even uglier when a local radio station played a tape, allegedly of
McDermott saying Republicans were no longer welcome at his restaurant.
McDermott, saying a political enemy duped the morning disc jockey with a fake
tape of his voice, is angling for a legal fight with WAEB-AM, which is rattled
enough by the threat that now even its outspoken DJ won't comment.

Across the rolling landscape of the politically divided Lehigh County in
eastern Pennsylvania are skirmishes like this one. Individually, these stories
of campaign tricks, hurt feelings, slights and accusations aren't huge, but
together they show why this is shaping up as such an emotionally charged
election.

In swing areas like this valley around Allentown and Bethlehem - where Al Gore
won four years ago by little over 1,000 votes - it's not just party
organizations that are polarized, but back yards, offices and neighborhood
hangouts.

"The day I put that Kerry sign up there, I thought I'd take some kidding about
it - that was it," said McDermott, who has owned the inn for 35 years and fears
his business is suffering from the political feuding. "This feels like the
Civil War, for crying out loud."

The emotional intensity of this election is not all negative: Many Lehigh
Valley residents are volunteering for political causes, boosting voter
registration rolls and mobilizing their neighbors for what some political
analysts expect to be record voter turnout Nov. 2. But the emotional overdrive
also explains why those passions at times have twisted into destructive
territory.

Fueled by relentless campaign advertising on both sides that appeals to fears,
anguish and anxiety, voters are acting out. Republicans are feeling as bruised
as Democrats.

"If they can't get the Bush-Cheney sign out of someone's yard, they're
spray-painting or writing obscenities on it with Magic Marker," said Dorothy
Niklos, chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign for Northampton County in the
Lehigh Valley, referring to the president's critics.

"They're smashing car windows and running keys down the side of cars to destroy
the paint. They're driving through yards. They're throwing animal feces and
eggs at houses that have Bush-Cheney signs."

Charges of dirty play are nothing new in an election season, but many believe
the underlying passions this year are hotter than ever, especially in the swing
states.

"It's very hard to stay calm," said Kathy Moser, 55, a medical grant writer at
Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown and a supporter of Sen. John Kerry. "I used
to be able to stay more calm, but I think what has caused me to become what
probably is an over-reactor is all the name-calling from their side. In
reaction to their negativity, I've become more negative."

In her office, Moser is girded for election-year slights. She says the office
bulletin board was filled with anti-Kerry cartoons, but when she put up one
sketch critical of President Bush, the supervisor suddenly banned all political
expression.

Some believe the events of the past four years - the 9/11 attacks, the war in
Iraq, concerns over terrorism - have made voters more entrenched in their
views, spoiling for a fight with those who disagree.

Such neighbor-versus-neighbor sniping was easy to find around Allentown. In
recent days, the city's Democrats were talking about putting honey and itching
powder on their signs to keep the opposition from stealing them, while
Allentown Republicans wondered whether Democrats dumped dozens of their own
signs at GOP headquarters just so they could accuse the rival party of foul
play.

The Lehigh Valley is accustomed to these tensions. When Pennsylvania narrowly
went for Al Gore four years ago, nowhere was the margin slimmer than Lehigh
County, which with Northampton County to the east makes up the Lehigh Valley.

"Both parties covet a place like this," said Chris Borick, who runs the
Institute of Public Opinion at Muhlenberg College in Allentown. He notes that
both candidates have made dozens of stops in the area trying to tip the balance
in this split electorate of socially conservative Reagan Democrats and liberal
labor voters.

"The parties are energized here," he said. "They've seen the record of people
crossing party tickets, and both sides think there are enough core voters here
they can get out."

At the moment, Kerry holds a slight lead in Pennsylvania, according to polls
taken last week. Historically, the Lehigh Valley has reflected the prevailing
sentiment in the rest of the state. In the past 10 presidential elections, the
Lehigh Valley - a former industrial area anchored by Bethlehem and Allentown,
surrounded by farms, booming suburbs and a struggling technology sector - has
gone the same way as Pennsylvania.

Debate is heated in such places as Pickles Steak House in Bethlehem. Bartender
Mike Reese, 23, used to talk about whom he was backing for president, but no
more.

"I told people for a while but it turned out to be a pain," the Bush supporter
said, adding that he recently lied to one customer just to stop his conversion
attempts. "At the end I said, 'You have a point there; now I'm not sure who
I'll vote for,' just to shut him up."

Tensions aren't running high just in Pennsylvania. Someone shot a bullet
through the Bush campaign storefront in Knoxville, Tenn., and a member of a
Christian group allegedly punched several veterans marching for John Kerry in a
Harvest Festival parade in Windsor, Colo. In Pensacola, Fla., burglars have
stolen so many Kerry signs that his supporters have started hanging them from
trees; in Oregon people are reporting Bush signs getting burned and shot. In
Chicago, a valet parking attendant got into a screaming match with a customer
whose car had a "GW04" bumper sticker. In Maryland, an Ellicott City Democrat
believes a shot fired into his home this month was politically motivated.

While much of the hostility is low-level - family members who have agreed not
to discuss politics because their disagreements get too hot - many on both
sides admit they're feeling more rage for their opponents this time. Dave
Weigle, a manager at Global Paintball, a Bethlehem outfitter, was far from
indignant when he heard people were tearing down Bush signs.

"Funny - I was thinking of doing that the other night," replied Weigle, 22,
stroking the scruff of a thin beard on his chin with a hint of either jest or
genuine mischief. When told some vandals were paintballing Bush signs, he
replied, "Awesome" - though he quickly added that he'd never knowingly sell
paintball supplies to vandals.

The political tension has put some Lehigh Valley neighbors on edge. This month,
Republican Bob Tighe found his four-year-old Saab with its back window smashed,
a crowbar-shaped hole in the glass over his Bush bumper sticker. His wife's new
- sticker-free - Volvo next to it in the driveway was left alone. After men
drove down his street in a car with New York tags, screaming expletives about
Bush a couple of days after the window was smashed, he decided the attack had
been politically motivated.

Tighe plans to keep his signs and bumper stickers.

"I never wanted to put anything on my car before, I've never had political
stickers before, but I think there's more riding on this election than any
election I've ever voted in," said Tighe, 40, a shoe designer at New
Jersey-based Etonic who feels it is critical to back the president in the Iraq
war. "This is a war for our way of life and people are forgetting that."

At a time when the Lehigh Valley air is thick with politics, some residents say
discussions of the election are conversational tinderboxes.

"It seems like people are afraid to take a stand - they fear there will be some
kind of repercussion if they do," said Dona Jones, 48, who says people called
her "brave" for putting out Kerry yard signs in her conservative neighborhood.

Jones, who wears home-made peace-sign earrings at "Out of Our Hands," an art
shop in the Allentown suburb of Emmaus, says she has given up on trying to
understand the Republican point of view: "Nobody debates it; for me, I can
never get beyond one or two sentences and the lines are drawn."

Many Republicans, similarly, are trying to keep the peace.

"We've agreed not to discuss it at all," Allentown Republican Patrick Newman,
56, said of a Democratic friend. "I love her dearly, but her politics make me
totally insane."

Folks like McDermott, the Democrat with a Kerry sign on his restaurant, worry
that high emotions will turn to attempts at intimidation before the election.
Now when he leaves the inn, a national historic landmark that dates to 1756, he
looks in his rear-view mirror to make sure no one is following him.

As for the tape episode, he has called his lawyer and hopes to file a complaint
against the station with the Federal Communications Commission. The station
management, citing McDermott's pending legal action, declines to comment on the
episode, as does Bobby Gunther Walsh, the DJ who initially played the tape to
his morning audience of 700,000.

To McDermott, the spat - and the angry letters and phone calls that followed -
revealed a deep partisan divide beneath the surface of his community:

"When people call, they're so angry, I can almost see them spitting into the
phone. One lady wrote me a letter - 'I'd sign my name, only I'd fear for my
life.' Like I'd do something to her. I just couldn't believe it."

Copyright + 2004, The Baltimore Sun

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