Junk mail

The self-proclaimed people’s mayor’s people were out proliferating the people’s mayor’s people-propaganda this weekend, distributing a four-page invite to the people’s mayor’s fish fry Sunday. But rather than going door-to-door she and her supporters prone to doing during the last campaign, they took it upon themselves to use scores of the peoples’ mailboxes without acquiring one of the nifty little people’s stamps most people use to send such literature legitimately.

As any political neophyte will tell you, mailboxes are theoretically the property of the U.S. Postal Service; tampering with them in any way shape or form is often frowned upon by the feds. This is why Uncle Ming will drop off his menus at your doorstep or even on your door knob, but will avoid using your mailbox.

But for some reason, the organization “Friends of Valerie” decided this rule didn’t apply to their campaign and littered scores of west side homes with campaign literature most probably assumed to be legitimate. Sans a bar code, prepaid post mark or address, the peoples’ mayor’s people are in violation of the law, albeit a small one.

Chances are pretty good the Keeniacs were out canvassing in the late afternoon and figured they could save a penny or three by placing the campaign ads in with the mail –they do seem to be spending comparatively little on mailers. John and Jane Doe come home from work in the evening, grab the mail and voila, it’s another campaign ad to join the scores of others coming legitimately through the post office.

This may sound trivial or even inconsequential for many. However, if this becomes a pronounced practice for Kamp Keehn or any other candidate for that matter, city residents can look forward to finding even more of this land-fill fodder cluttering the channels of regular mail. Even the legitimate mailers are quite the burden. There’s no way to stop them from coming in the mail other than contact each individual candidate themselves during a particular election cycle.

There’s also a bit of irony here, especially for the good mayor and her “green initiatives” pitch she made through a certain shaky film maker this summer. Ultimately, these mailers as well as the campaign signs cluttering every last piece of road frontage in the city proper, will end up in the same place: the back of a trash truck en route to a landfill. In the very best case scenario, winning candidates might be able to reuse their road signs two years from now; something that Keehn obviously isn’t doing judging by her newly adopted “people’s mayor” moniker.

What would be interesting and unique in city politics is a candidate that touts a green platform and then swears off using these mailers or signs as trademarks of their campaign. Theoretically speaking, it wouldn’t be a difficult thing to do. Seldom is there a voter that bases their decision on how many signs they see around town.

And if the candidate really wants to get their message out, they can simply pay a visit door-to-door on their weekends and spare time. It seems to work fairly well for the Mormons.