Green Party graffiti

Vandals! Again!

The Kelly campaign isn't the only outfit in town dealing with illicit campaigning these days.

Freelance Green Party supporters were out this week tagging some windows with Elizabeth Dickinson graffiti, although it looks like they were kind enough to do it with a water-soluble paint marker.

Here's what the front of the old Play it Again Sports location looked like this morning on Cleveland. Willie's Guitars had similar scrawlings on one of its front windows, as well.



"We have a list of about two dozen places," said Dickinson campaign manager Mary Petrie (regular Scoop readers may remember her from the lawn sign kickoff, http://stpaulcityhall.blogspot.com/2005/07/campaign-notes-contd.html, in which she demonstrated how to properly support a candidate).

The Dickinson campaign, which says they didn't have anything to do with it and opposes the vandalism, has actuallly dispatched a volunteer already with a bucket of soapy water to remove the offending expressions of support at Grand Photo.

"We thought it would be the nice thing to do," Petrie said.

Dickinson's spokesman and husband, though, suggested today that darker forces might be at work.

"From the extremely well-organized and extensive nature of the tagging of small businesses especially, we can't help but wonder if someone supporting another candidate is trying to give us a black eye," Christopher Childs wrote in an email release "The moreso, given Elizabeth's focus on small businesses and our cultivation of support from them."

Kelly campaign spokesman Vince Muzik also condemned the vandalism on Monday. "People should be talking about the issues instead of doing stuff like this," he said.