Bumper stickers

[Commendatori]

Poll question: Bumper stickers

Today I took a bit if shit for not putting a pro-Kerry / anti-Bush bumper sticker on my car.

There's a big part of me that wonders why anyone would deface a vehicle with a sticker other than one that indicates vehicle registration. Years ago I had a "winter beater," an old car you use during crappy weather to preserve your good car, and I put a New York Islanders sticker on it. Predictably, a Rangers fan fucked up my car.

So this leads me to wonder why people put political bumper stickers on their cars. I've heard a few stories here at DU about stickers, and they're usually about anything from harsh words to vandalism. Never once have I heard about a bumper sticker recruiting a voter, just as a Cowboys sticker will not win any Dallas fans.

I don't have a Kerry sticker on my car for two reasons, one major and one minor: I don't expect that the driver of a 1997 Cavalier is going to change anyone's mind, and quite frankly I don't want some Bush fan treating my Cavalier the way that Ranger fan treated my 1975 Dodge Dart. Mostly, though, I don't want to mar up a car of limited value when I don't see a positive outcome - who changes their vote over a bumper sticker of a stranger in a cheap car?

If you see me these days, you see me wearing anti-Bush shirts, drinking from "Kerry in 2004" coffee mugs, etc; anyone who sees me out and about can tell I'm voting for Kerry. Why the fuck should I put on a sticker when I don't see a benefit?

This leads me to ask what most of you think of these stickers...

[Goldmund]

1. From my standpoint

It isn't about changing minds. It's about making yourself and your views visible to the world around you. The media and the Bushbots would like to believe that everybody's on their side, and that only radical fringes aren't. I put bumper stickers on my car soon after Sept 11th, when that climate of "everybody supports Bush" was in full swing (I don't have any Kerry bumper-stickers, just anti-Bush). I saw it as signifying "you're not alone" to those who thought like me, and "we will resist you" and "we're not afraid of you" to the Bushbots.

Nobody ever vandalized my car (I live in New York). Though I swear that the parking-ticket guy is a Repub.

[markbark]

2. C'mon BOD....

The stickers are the only thing holding my heap together! ('94 Ford Aerostar)

:D


--MAB

[mitchtv]

3. I hava "Buy American- Buy Union" sticker on my 82 aaajeep Scrambler

pretty non partisan, but I won't put my KE sticker on the 97 T bird,it has a nice paint job and I live in freeperville , ca.
maybe I will tape it to the back window (inside), so I can detach when i park.

[T Wolf]

4. The sad truth

is that there are many people who do not think for themselves and are not interested or smart enough to learn about candidates. These are people who see a lot of lawn signs or bumper stickers (or polls) and think, "everybody seems to be for X, so I guess I am too."

I think it is easier to win a vote from someone like that than change someone's mind who has an opinion.

[politicat]

5. I was with you until....

I realized I was ALREADY advertising something - my dealership, which I don't agree with. (I bought their product, but that doesn't mean I want to be their permanent billboard.) The first sticker went on over that GDFPOS name plate the day I sent off the final payment.

My husband says my bumper sticker habit is like his tattoo habit - I keep adding them. However, it's not that hard to remove them, and it's a visibility thing for me. I live in a split county after moving out of Boulder County, and I feel we have to "show the colors" because there are a lot of quiet liberals who feel oppressed by the noisy radCons.

It's a show of support for our own, not a means of convincing the opposition.

Pcat

[Commendatori]

6. I don't advertise the dealership; one condition of me buying the car was

that they take their goddamned ad (obscenity directed at them, not you) off of my car. If you're in D.C. find a Chevy Cavalier with a silver disc where a dealership ad should be, and you've found my car.