photo courtesy of Mira Hartford
Our friends over at Mira Hartford has a very relevant, albeit brief, critique on the proponderance of advertissments of the political variety during this political season.
I would say a big AAAAmen to that my brotha from anotha motha. Political signs are a fact of life and politicians (myself include) need to have their feet held to the fire when they are irresponsible with both the placing and removing of said signs. But this recent primary season saw the advent of a particular political sign which truly harms the aesthetics of the city: the wheat pasted poster, particularly the flock put out by Edwin Vargas in his run against John Fanfara.
These pasted on posters are a bizznach to remove from any surface and the West and Southend of Hartford are peppered with them. Mind you, Wethersfield is also part of that voting district and I’m sure you won’t find a single poster out there. This is particularly frustrating as the culprits are people that I am huge fans of. First, Edwin Vargas, who ran a commendable campaign and showed how public financing for elections can work. I’m convinced that if he had qualified earlier for the funds and had access to them earlier, the race would’ve been closer than it was. I recorded a Spanish language commercial in support of his candidacy and did what I could to help out. I even called him to tell him that the ad (which I saw on the Hartford News) kicked buttocks. I am surprised that he would ok the use of such a permanent type of signage.
The second culprit is my good friend John Murphy, director of the Vargas’ campaign and one of the bigwigs at Connecticut Citizen Action Group. John was one of the dynamic duo (along with Tom Swann) who help launch the Ned Lamont for Senate campaign. John should know better than to allow this, especially since part of CCAG’s main issues is Energy and the Environment.
Wheat pasting can be a cool substitute for traditional graffiti methods, one of the more famous “tags” is the Obey Giant tag, or movement, by Shepard Fairey. I would not be surprised to find out that this option was initiated by one of the many ambitious young workers on the campaign and I would be glad to purchase the smallest spatula possible for that person to scrape every sign up.
We need to find a way to hold all politicians responsible for whatever long term damage is made for the simple end of winning a friggin election.