Campaign Literature: Your Trash Is My Treasure

by Sharon Aron Baron April 26, 2012

by Sharon Aron Baron April 26, 2012 2 minutes read

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By: Sharon Aron Baron

I love the excitement of a big election year and one of the things that’s especially exciting is looking at all the campaign literature and learning more about the candidates.

While most people toss those campaign mailers in the trash, I not only read them, I save most of them in a thick folder where I’ve kept them since 2000.

Not only do I look back to see who threw the most insults, I also see if the winners ever lived up to their campaign promises.

I think of them as not only collectible pieces, but election insurance.

One of my favorite mailers was from the Bush/Gore election of 2000. In it, Bush’s campaign strategists made Al Gore’s face as red as the devil’s, making him look downright evil.

Who would vote for this evil villain, creator of the Internet and Nobel Peace Prize winner for the panel on global climate change?

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Inside the mailer is a fantastic photo of George W. Bush sans the red tones, smiling and looking confident. The good guy!

Another thing I scrutinize are mailers or websites with pictures of candidates surrounded by others. I study the people that appear with the candidates: Does the scene look staged? Do they appear to be interested in what the candidate is saying?

One of my all-time favorite mailers was sent out by Marty Rubinstein when he was running for his second term as School Board Member for District 6 back in 2006. What was obvious to me from looking at one of the photos (but probably not to Marty), was a child sleeping while Marty is reading a book to the class.

I kept this flyer for years, and in 2010 I finally met Marty and told him how I always remembered this mailer of his. Marty, who is no longer a school board member, now writes for the popular website Watching Broward. I hope he will get a laugh out of seeing this again.

I came across another potential “sleeper” in the audience when I was looking at Vince Boccard’s website. Boccard is running for Coral Springs Mayor and has a dazzling website at boccardformayor.com. I couldn’t help but notice a man that appears to be sleeping in the audience as Vince is speaking.

Note to Vince: It’s too early to be putting your audiences to sleep. You have four years of commission meetings ahead of you to do that. And just so Vince doesn’t feel too bad, here’s a plug for his Meet & Greet on Monday, April 30th from 5:30pm – 8:30 pm at La Fontana Restaurant at the Walk.

I’m sure I’ll have a lot more campaign literature to add to my collection by November.

Author Profile

Sharon Aron Baron

Editor of Talk Media and writer for Coral Springs Talk. CST was created in 2012 to provide News, Views, and Entertainment for the residents of Coral Springs and the rest of South Florida.