Viewpoint: Stolen Tranel yard signs par for the course for team Zinke
Phil Hamilton
In my neighborhood, there is quite a bit of support for Monica Tranel. She is a rational candidate with a reasonable platform of good ideas and sound solutions for issues Montanans are facing.
Some of us express this support with bumper stickers and yard signs. Recently we all woke up to find our yard signs stolen.
I thought about what this means. Maybe someone out there feels that capturing yard signs might change minds and votes. Stealing seems a likely tactic in a campaign whose leader has made questionable ethics a signature of his career.
But it is presumptuous to assume that Ryan Zinke himself had anything to do with this. He might not. He’s more likely cutting a deal in a back room that would line his pockets while his public persona is passionately flogging some pressing issue, like persecuting transgender teenagers or inserting government into the examining rooms of women seeking reproductive health care.
Or making sure that anyone with a pulse has access to an assault weapon. The people stealing yard signs are only following three of the ground rules for his campaign:
- Cheat
- Don’t get caught
- Deny
So far it’s working for Ryan.