On occasion various diaries and comments exhort us to send letters to the editor in attempt to make sure that our side of the story is being posted against the non-stop ignorant comments flowing from the low-info, not comfortable with that scary black man, irredeemably mad about Hillary and otherwise unfathomable folks who publicly cheerlead for the worst presidential ticket since, I don't know, ever. So here's a letter-to-the-editor (plus) story with a happy ending for your evening enjoyment.
First you should know that my partner and I live in a heavily Republican, relatively highly mormon populated area in the middle of Arizona. Our town is too small for its own newspaper, but the nearby local paper is small-town conservative. Incongruously located right on the main drag of this conservative small-town America is a Obama campaign office (locally financed) with a large Obama '08 banner. Back in our even smaller town, I don't go out much except to hike, but have heard a couple of second-hand accounts of locals bad mouthing Obama in some racially inflammatory ways.
So with that backdrop, the brief but thus-far happy tale begins...
My partner needed to update her voter registration, so we stopped by the local Obama office -- this was sometime the week before last. As we were chatting with the office volunteers, we were told that there's a regional weekly that provides an alternative to the city newspaper, one more tolerant of liberal viewpoints. And we were given an extra copy of that paper as we bade farewell and promised to return for the debates.
On our way home we stopped at our local market where we always try to spend some of our shopping money for the local economy. I didn't go in, but my partner did and came out of the store quite upset. "I can't believe it!" she fumed. "Right on the front checkout counter," she continued, "a homemade Vote Palin (and that other guy) sign! Are these people stupid? You don't put political signs in places of business!" This was a particularly sensitive point for her, having run a couple of small business' herself and having turned down political adverts for things she supported in addition to those she didn't. We agreed on the spot that we would not be returning to this store, but my partner, to her great credit, went two steps further.
She wrote a letter to the regional weekly newspaper that we had just become aware of and told them of our story. She suggested that perhaps they should write a story on small businesses (and one in particular!) that poked their fingers in the eyes of some customers by showing their political stances in public. At the same time, she wrote a letter to the local market explaining that we would not be shopping locally anymore because of their visible support of JMC; questioning why they would want to potentially alienate local shoppers with such a display regardless of political affiliation.
Fast forward to this evening. Partly out of curiosity, and partly out of 'desperation' to get something that only this store has (short of driving 30 miles for it), I went into the store despite the protests of my partner. The McPalin sign was nowhere to be seen!
Did the newspaper call the store to verify the assertion that my partner had sent them? Did her personal letter to the store make a difference? Did some angry customer(s) confront the store manager directly? Did the store owners find out that an employee had done a no-no?
In any case, speaking out by my partner or someone else eliminated at least one egregious pro-McPalin advertisement, and that's a nice little thing, don't you think?