( – promoted by Clark)

(cross posted at DKos)

We all know that the GOP is willing to stoop to virtually any low in order to disenfranchise Democratic voters or to intimidate courts deciding on the legality of recounts.  But what are they willing to do in order to achieve the oh-so-important objective of being able to hold signs in front of cameras on college campuses?  This last week offered a couple of examples of obnoxious GOP tactics being employed in order to create the illusion that college students actually like the McCain-Palin ticket.

Most people probably have heard by now of the Pro-War, GOP-lovin group Vets for Freedom’s offer of cash to fraternities at Saint Louis University to hold up neocon signs during the VP-related events in St. Louis this week.  Basically, they offered a free lunch, free publicity for the frat, and “sizable contributions” to the fraternities in exchange for getting people out to hold their signs.  And the best part of the offer, of course, was that even if the franternity members didn’t actually care about Vets for Freedom, they could make their pledges hold the signs, which would be like “free money and free publicity” according to the Vets for Freedom field staffer Laura Meyer.  The article was discussing fraternities at SLU, but I have heard similar offfers were made to fraternities at Washington University in St. Louis (WashU).

So that’s all pretty crappy, but at least in that case they were using actual students to hold their signs.  But what really pisses me off is a story in today’s StudLife, the WashU student newspaper.  According to the story (and to friends who where there), a group of middle-aged people from outside the WashU community muscled their way past students up to the front of crowds to hold up McCain-Palin signs in front of the cameras.  Here are some of the quotes from the article:

“They were just pushing their way from the back,” freshman Jed Jackoway said. “It was just obnoxious.”

“I think that having older volunteers wasting time and space on a college campus by just holding placards and taking away opportunities from the students who actually go to Wash. U. is detrimental not only to why Wash. U. holds the debates, but kind of tears down the nice atmosphere that we have here,” Guthorn said.

“They don’t even go here,” Botteron, who took issue with the signs themselves, said. “We have makeshift signs. They have big poles.”

To put this in context, the whole campus was blocked off to the public during the day of the debate.  The only people who were allowed in were people with valid WashU IDs, members of the press, or people who had tickets to the debate.  In other words, these people either snuck onto campus (perhaps posing as media), or were GOP operatives with tickets to the debate who took time out to push some students out of their way.  

And my favorite part of the story is this:

Sophomore Justin Samakow, campaign coordinator for the College Republicans, disagreed.

“I personally think it’s good that they’re here,” Samakow said. “It’s good that they’re helping out.”

Samakow felt that the sign-holders helped to show that the University has a substantial moderate and conservative presence, not just a liberal presence.

So having people from outside campus sneak on, shove students out of their way,  and hold up obnoxiously big McCain signs is a way of showing that the campus has a “substantial conservative presence.”  With reasoning like that, it looks like someone is going to have a great career ahead of them with the GOP.

PS I don’t particularly care if you spread this diary, but please do pass on the StudLife story about the GOP thugs.  I think it’s important for people to know that they have no hesitation about bullying students if it fits their political objectives.