With Election Day only three weeks away, the campaign season is in full swing. Supporters are planting yard signs, passing out literature and rallying for their candidates.
Meanwhile, a shadow campaign is also afoot. This is the other side of local politics, the one that focuses more on tearing down the “unworthy” than in promoting the best candidate for the job.
As diehard partisanship has gained ground in Downers Grove, so has the tendency to badmouth the opposition. Some residents will remember the successful and heavy-handed efforts of a largely anonymous band of citizens to drive a village council candidate out of the race four years ago.
Two years ago, a hotly contested mayoral contest again brought out the worst in a few, with campaign signs stolen, windows broken, rumors spread and us-against-them lines drawn.
The anti-campaigners are again at work, and you’ll know them by the tricks of their trade: telephone calls heavy with innuendo, e-mail campaigns of disparagement and face-to-face attempts to “enlighten” citizens about the shortcomings of the “wrong” candidate.
I’ve seen e-mails that cast aspersions on the opposition and I’ve spoken with people who have been accosted by negative campaigners at public meet-and-greets. And if that’s not bad enough, some of the perpetrators of the shadow campaign are people in positions of public trust.
As best as I can tell, their numbers are quite small. But their intentions are self-serving and their MO anything but neighborly. Connecting the dots from the 2005 strong-arm effort to my own experience with the anonymous hatchet jobbers of “I Read It In DG” to the bad-mouthing that’s taken place in recent weeks, it seems quite possible that the same small group of hyper-partisans is involved.
But why? Their actions are too destructive to be counted as community service.
As best as I can determine it’s control and power that attracts them, along with an unwillingness to allow the voters of this town to make their own choices based on their own due diligence.
And it’s costing us plenty: potential candidates who will never run because they fear abuse, voters who become disenchanted, and a process that is inevitably compromised by people who think savaging the opposition is a viable means to an end.
It’s frustrating because strongly held opinions needn’t be toxic, even during campaign season. They don’t have to poison our civic and personal relationships or crowd out mutual respect.
I’m not one for making differences personal; I’ve been a mother long enough to realize that you focus on the behavior, not the individual.
But some of these people are crossing a line and eventually they’ll have to be called out for it — by their political elders, by voters repulsed by their tactics or by candidates who understand that it’s possible to debate policy and still maintain a civil demeanor.
That’s a whole lot of vague condemnation without any substance EJ. Do you have any particulars you’d like to share? I’d like to hear just what you’re referring to.
Criticisms of bad practices are warranted, especially when longtime incumbents are caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
Thanks for asking, Mark.
In addition to being a target of this sort of negativity, I’ve spent the last couple of days on the phone carefully checking out this story. As is my practice on the blog, I quote people only when absolutely necessary and only with their permission. As you can imagine, many prefer not to be quoted by name, particularly on controversial or sensitive topics.
As for identifying the offenders: My long-standing practice has been to refrain from anything that could be construed as a personal attack.
Anyhow, my point isn’t to counter badmouthing with more badmouthing, but to encourage all concerned to push for a change in partisan tactics and attitudes.
I’ll be expanding on this topic in my column in Thursday’s Sun.
The people who are harrasing voters are the same people who will never run for office because they do not want to be held liable or accountable for anything. They are immature adults who are affraid of their own shadow………………..
ROFL didn’t take long to provide an example.
If we believe that the story is accurate and in deed has had an impact in our local elections, how and why did the “shadow campaign” start in DG? Is this a recent phenom?
Looking over the responses by other regular contributors to this site, can’t DG Report be viewed as a sort of “shadow campaign” in itself? It’s just a collection of differing opinions, isn’t it? Is that bad?
Maybe there is something more devious that we are implying takes place.
Can’t wait to say that I read about it in the Sun!
Mr. Norris was not so good under fire tonight, I sure hope that is not how he would govern if elected. I think all the rest of the candidates were worth listening to.
Mr. Norris has a lot to learn about the Village,. Just study his web site and you will see he is clueless. I am sad cause I was hoping he would beat Bill and we could finally get rid of the dam buses!
Tonight’s village council candidates forum was disappointing, to say the least. (Kind of dull, too.) The questions left much to be desired and the candidates’ answers were only revealing in the negative. (I agree that newcomer Norris naively took some overly-populist positions that will likely lose him more votes than he may have hoped to gain.) Others were more reliant on prepared scripts than Obama is on his teleprompter crutch, and tried to play it safe by talking without really saying anything. I don’t know that much more about them and where they stand after the 60 minutes than I did beforehand. That’s too bad. It was an opportunity squandered.