Sign of the times in local House race

ON THE MARK/Mark Kelsey

I admit to being baffled by the thinking behind campaign signs. Is anyone really swayed by them?

Free speech issues aside, if the use of signs by all candidates has the same cumulative effect on the electorate as no candidates putting up signs, shouldn't we all just agree that no signs is the better alternative? Banning signs might force candidates for office to get noticed by actually engaging in meaningful political discourse - something conspicuously absent in most advertising-driven campaigns.

In House District 15, which spans a large rural portion of the Susitna Valley, independent candidate Myrl Thompson has been trying to engage incumbent Rep. Mark Neuman, a Republican, in a discussion of issues of importance to voters in their district. Neuman has made it clear he has no intention of playing along, other than appearances at a couple of out-of-district forums.

A family man from Big Lake, Neuman says he values his time with his wife and kids and wants to make the most of it while he's not in Juneau. Hard to fault those priorities. But how will it play with voters?

Sitting on a bankroll typical of an incumbent member of the majority, Neuman can afford the luxury of letting his signs and other advertising do his talking, however unsubstantive that talking may be. Noting the sources of that bankroll, Thompson says it is symptomatic of a larger problem in state government that he'd love to debate Neuman about.

But Neuman says those who have supplied the tens of thousands of mostly out-of-district dollars in his coffers have not changed his basic values. He's still the same family man from Big Lake who went to Juneau two years ago.

However true this may be, it's a dangerous gambit to assume that voters won't jump to their own conclusions. After all, among the contributors to Neuman are deep-pocketed political action committees and VECO executives, as well as individuals like corrupt Republican Party boss Randy Ruedrich and his District 15 sheriff, Roy Burkhart, a part-time Alaskan who lives in Willow.

Thompson, on the other hand, has made it a point of honor in two campaigns to not accept any special-interest group money. Consequently, he is cash poor. No stranger to Juneau himself, Thompson spent last session in the Capitol as a citizen lobbyist, keeping legislators honest and fighting a tireless and too-often uphill battle for meaningful ethics legislation and open, accountable government.

Such no-brainer advocacy should have been met with cheers. Instead, his weekly &#8220Juneau Report” and monthly opinion columns on these pages caused no small amount of discomfort among lawmakers and Republican Party faithful, who had been accustomed to having their way out of the spotlight Thompson shined on them.

Which brings me back to signs.

They may be fewer in number now that two elections are behind us, but the silliness surrounding them has certainly multiplied - at least in District 15, where guerrilla tactics have become commonplace. There have been reports of business owners threatened with boycotts, for example, for posting signs supporting Thompson or independent Senate candidate Jay Cross.

I was not surprised to hear of this. Burkhart himself threatened an advertising boycott of this newspaper earlier this year if we didn't cease printing Thompson's opinion pieces. Still, there is no place for this kind of bullying in the democratic process.

Of equal concern is the ongoing commando warfare on Thompson's roadside signs. Monday night, the biggest &#8220raid” yet went down, he said. All of his signs from Big Lake to Talkeetna were ripped from their posts and stolen. A Neuman sign, one of several new ones that went up Monday night, was put up where one of Thompson's formerly stood.

This is not to implicate Neuman. Despite unfriendly relations between the two political foes, I believe Neuman is above such criminal behavior.

The party zealots who have a vested interest in seeing him re-elected, however, are another matter. But, as is the case with his campaign contributions, Neuman may have a hard time disassociating himself from these people in the eyes of

voters.

Which brings me to the final bit of sign silliness.

Some of Neuman's signs seem to be cozied up to Sarah Palin signs in such a way as to give the erroneous impression that he is endorsed by the Republican candidate for governor. This is not a tactic limited to District 15. But it seems more of a hypocritical strategy there, since Burkhart was a key figure in an effort to smear Palin during the primary campaign.

It is worth noting that Palin found her voice - and her widespread support - in standing up to Ruedrich and the &#8220excessive partisanship” of his business-as-usual crowd. Now, the same party-first mentality polluting the District 15 campaign trail may also doom the re-election bid of a family man from Big Lake, whose only mistake might be thinking too highly of some of the people supporting him.

Mark Kelsey is the Frontiersman's managing editor. Contact him at 352-2268 or mark.kelsey @frontiersman.com.