Reader IGCBlogger sent an e-mail with the subject line “not a bumper sticker” and wrote:
Prof: Sorry I’m not a particularly good photographer, but this says “Defeat Obama in 2012”. I took it a few days ago in Sarasota, FL, on Tamiami Trail, a major thoroughfare in the city.Here is some background info:http://sarasota.patch.com/articles/city-responds-to-sign-controversy
The background is that a Florida investor plans to install 10,000 signs around the country with the same message: “Defeat Obama in 2012.”
As the Sarasota Patch reports, when the first sign went up at a property the investor just bought in Sarasota, it incurred the wrath of an Obama mega-fundraiser:
It’s big, and it has the words Obama and 2012 on it, but what the “Defeat Obama in 2012” sign isn’t is an election sign, according to Sarasota, Florida’s city attorney…However, Caren Lobo, a Democratic fundraiser and wife of an Obama administration official, wrote to Mayor Suzanne Atwell and the city commissioners expressing concern for the negative impact this sign could have on the City of Sarasota. As noted in the public records, Lobo says, in part, “The sign posting is the beginning of a national movement and Sarasota will be the vanguard. And it seems to a lay person like myself as if the logic to get to a legal approval of the sign has tied itself in knots. How unfortunate to put the city in a position to be used like this.”Lobo is no stranger to the political scene. She and her husband Dick Lobo hosted First Lady Michelle Obama in January at their Sarasota home for a fundraiser for President Barack Obama’s campaign.Dick Lobo is the director of the International Broadcasting Bureau, which oversees the U.S. Government-produced news site Voice of America. Dick Lobo was recommended for the position by Obama and was confirmed by the Senate.Government media watchers are speculating if Dick Lobo could be appointed by Obama to fill a vacancy in the Broadcasting Board of Govenors, following the January fundraiser.
The Patch ran a reader poll which, as of last night, showed the following public response:
This is just the first of 10,000. I think the investor who is paying for the signs is getting his money’s worth.
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