Think and act outside the box
Chuck your lefty handbook in 2026. Try thinking outside the box. Throw some Hail Marys. The same-old ain’t working.
The headline, “USPS changed postmark rules; why your mail could be late now,” caught my attention Tuesday morning. The change “could cost you late fees and penalties for anyone mailing time-sensitive documents such as tax returns or bill payments.” Readers will immediately see what’s not on that list of time-sensitive documents.
I never would have thought of changing USPS postmark rules for screwing with mail-in ballots. Nor would you. “That’s because you don’t have a criminal mind,” a restaurant diner once observed. But our opponents would. They are creatively devious. They will look for and try any way to rig elections in their favor (even if it hurts their own voters) up to and including sparking a violent insurrection. They will submit “alternate” slates of electors. They will redraw congressional districts mid-decade. The list of election fuckery could fill the rest of this post.
“They’re such bastards,” a friend in state elections texted back late Tuesday.
The point is that Democrats as a party and lefty activists are forever playing defense against such tactics. Our idea of taking our game to the next level is doing the same thing we’ve always done, the way we always do it, just more of it. It’s stale and predictable. From writing your congressman, to the language we use, to our 20+ year-old voter database, and how we use it.
Get out of your defensive crouch. Try. Something. Different. Something bold.
I’ve written several times about the signs I’ve been displaying since August. (Here’s a short how-to.) I’m trying something off the wall. Today I thought I’d lay out the strategy. I don’t do the usual, tired, issue-based directives like “Save Social Security” or “Fund Public Education” people expect. I’m not declaring what policies I support, or what policies I want commuters to support, what wars I oppose, or how much I dislike the Orange Menace. I’m trying to build commuters’ trust. In me.
In three to six-or-seven words, I’m giving evening commuters something to ponder on their way home. Four or five rush hours per week in different locations. Sometimes with others. Sometimes solo. Every week, like clockwork. Your friendly neighborhood Sign Guy, juking on the corner or on the overpass like a human air dancer.
Last night, I was at a major intersection (my usual Wednesday solo gig) with the sign above that I crafted for holiday traffic.
A guy in a black pickup pulled off the road, parked a feet away, and rolled down his window to ask what my answer was. I told him I didn’t have to have an answer, “You have to have an answer.”
“I voted for Trump,” he replied.
“Good luck with that,” I smiled and went back to performing for commuters. If he was expecting hostility or an argument, he didn’t get it. When he drove off, I spotted the Trump sticker in the back window.
But here’s the thing. Mr. Curious interrupted his New Year’s Eve drive home to ask what this loon with the sign was about. He’ll be thinking about it all night. He’ll tell the wife what the sign said. Score one for me.
Democrats and the growing pool of independent voting and non-voting commuters each week are smiling, waving, honking, etc., not for the message anymore so much as for their friendly neighborhood Sign Guy. It’s interactive. He waves back. He points back and smiles. He’s become a friend.
The Sign Guy offers talking points and a chuckle on the way home. He’s someone they can count on whose name they don’t even know. He reassures them that the entire world has not gone mad. Like the Freeway Blogger, only in person. I think of it as highway “deep canvassing.” Instead of visiting the same doors repeatedly, the doors come to me. And on the overpass, that’s ~3,600 doors (and ~4,700 pairs of eyes) per hour. *
Next fall the messages will be less anodyne. That trusted messenger will be asking commuters and passing pedestrians to vote. Not for anyone in particular. Just to vote. But like I train poll greeters, if people trust you, they will vote with you. Commuters already know Sign Guy’s lean without being lectured. Independents respond poorly to being lectured.
It’s a Hail Mary. Electorally, will it make a measurable difference? I don’t know.
I’m not suggesting that this is what any of you should do, but to do what you can with what you’ve got. Take risks. Try new things. Just, please, not the same-old, same-old that frankly ain’t working anymore. Campaign hacks will argue that my sign strategy fails to capture any data about passing drivers, doesn’t target probable voters, etc. But I’ve already rendered an opinion on that:
There is a systematic overreliance on tech to solve Democrats’ problems. When I hear, “Our campaign will be data-driven,” I wince. Too many political problems cannot be solved with more tech. NC Democrats’ new chair, Anderson Clayton, 25, scolds, “Democrats don’t have a messaging problem. They have a showing-up problem.”
So show up in 2026. Throw some Hail Marys.
* Sorry, I don’t have any photos of me on the overpass. OTOH, when rush hour traffic stops, plenty of passengers take pictures. I make my signs readable from 75-100 feet away.
