An open letter to Walker Hines

Sir,

Today, a "Walker Hines for state representative" yard sign appeared in my front yard.

I did not request this sign.

Perhaps I would have voted for Mr Hines, perhaps I would have supported Mr Hines. However, with this blatant disregard for my personal property, with this guerrilla marketing techniques, I can in no way support this individual.

If this lack of respect for my rights is anything like what we could expect from Mr Hines as a legislator, I obviously do not want him to represent me.

This is just tacky.

Sincerely,

Ashley Morris

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UPDATE: I emailed Mr Hines, and we had a nice conversation. Evidently, someone I do not know requested a sign be put up at my address.

I have not researched the candidates for district 95 yet, but Mr Hines handled this in a forthright, honest, and gallant manner. A simple mistake was made, and Mr Hines corrected it and apologized. If only other politicians could handle things this well.

Well done, Mr Hines.

Comments

[Varg]

Your support was his plan all along.

[celcus]

He is currently making the rounds of neighborhood groups in district 91, which I take as a good sign. I've heard him respond to questions with "I don't know" and "as a state legislator there isn't much I can do". All in all, I came a way with a pretty good impression.

Natasha Hutchinson is another to keep an eye on. At this point I would be happy with either.

[nolagal]

Hmm, I'm impressed that he actually responded. Last weekend a Joseph Lopinto sign appeared in my boyfriend's yard in Metairie, along with all the other yards on his street - without any requests so far as we know. Worse, it was a flag with a 9/11 memorial message, twisted to support Mr. Lopinto's campaign. I emailed Mr. Lopinto to complain but, needless to say, haven't heard a word in reply.

[ashley]

He responded from his blackberry...instead of waiting until he got home. Nice.

[Frolic]

Is that the actual letter that you sent him? It's doubly impressive that he responded politely to such an obnoxious letter.

[ashley]

Frolic, if you think my letter is more obnoxious than someone going onto your property and putting an unsolicited sign there, then we have different definitions of the word.

[Frolic]

No, I think it's obnoxious to assume that he did it on purpose. And to what end? You would suddenly vote for him because you saw a sign on your lawn? You think he believed that you wouldn't immediately pull it up but leave it until election day?

Wouldn't it make more sense that a volunteer got the address wrong? Or some other honest mistake happened? If I were to write a letter of complaint, I would have at least acknowledged the possibility that the other party acted in good faith but made a mistake.

You know, I find your rants really amusing. I do. That's why I read your blog all the time.

But I'm deeply concerned about the future of New Orleans. Who we elect in every race matters. Politics is not just a game. I've got no idea who Hines is, but I'd give him the benefit of the doubt until he proved otherwise.

[Edward Meegle]

I am glad to hear that Walker Hines was an absolute gent about the sign, but that doesn't change the fact that he is completely unqualified to serve in the legislature. He hasn't lived in New Orleans for the past two years(how he qualified I don't know) and he has never worked a day in his life (aside from summer internships listed on his website). I wish my daddy had the money to buy me a seat in Baton Rouge...

[ashley]

Frolic, last election, somebody put Jay Batt signs in my yard. Seriously. So when it comes to signs, I've been burned before.

Edward, I did notice some inconsistencies on his website, like "a lifelong resident of New Orleans" and then 3 paragraphs later "at this stage of my life, I feel compelled to return to New Orleans".

At this point, I have not formed an opinion on any of these candidates. Mr Hines has shown himself to be a gentleman, which is rare for a politician these days.

[Frolic]

Well, I could see Batt doing something like that. How funny. Hell, I could see Batt personally doing something like that.

[ashley]

Yeah, a Batt sign strategicallly positioned in front of my Midura sign. I guess they missed the "Anybody but Batt" sign.

[Edward Meegle]

Like I said, I'm glad that he was nice about the sign, but I don't think someone's first job out of college out to be as a legislator.
He abandoned NOLA after the storm (he was at Tulane, but he transferred to a better school and chose to stay there) and he hasn't fought the same battles that the rest of us have.
Instead if sticking it out and rebuilding he took cushy internships in DC with Republican consulting firms like the Cypress Group.
And last time I checked, his website said nothing about coastal restoration.
I'm afraid he's like all the other politicians- he's in it for his ego, not to serve you and me, and he thinks his father's money and connections can buy him an office.

[Karen]

Here is a quote and a link from an article about Walker Hines

"I love Michigan, both the University and Ann Arbor," Hines said. "I wouldn't rule out the possibility of living here permanently."

"By the end, we had about seven to eight people staying with us," Hines said. "Most of them were maids and housekeepers from the Lower Ninth Ward who thought they would be safer by moving to higher ground.

http://media.www.michigandaily.com/media/storage/paper851/news/2006/09/14/NationalInternational/Where.Are.They.Now-2272204.shtml

[ashley]

Ouch.

[anon]

Just a fyi,
I work for a rival campaign (I won't say who), and I can tell you this wasn't just a mistake.

Campaigns like Walker Hines' (Una Anderson is also a big offender in this department, so it isn't just Hines) will drop a sign to increase visibility and name recognition.

If the resident gets pissed and takes it down, well, they're rich enough to not care. If the resident calls, it's a pretty simple task to smooth-talk a solution.

Again, I'm hardly impartial, but facts are facts.

(Some may ask - does YOUR campaign do this? No. We don't like throwing away signs.)

[Ray]

I wish somebody from the Hines campaign would give a tutorial to the Landrieus. I've been trying to get a Mitch sign for weeks with no luck.

[Aaron]

We had a lady running for state senate put up American flags on EVERY LAWN in River Ridge with a little label attached saying she was helping us celebrate Labor Day...weird broad. I refuse to play into the equation more signs = more votes, no matter how effective it is in this city, so I'll be voting on issues.

[ashley]

Ray, if my Landrieu sign is gone, I'll know you took it.

[Ray]

"I refuse to play into the equation more signs = more votes, no matter how effective it is in this city, so I'll be voting on issues."

I think the signs are almost more useful than voting. We vote and vote and vote and everything still sucks, but at least with the yard signs I can figure out which neighbors are Republicans so we know which houses to egg on Halloween.

[Aaron]

You might be onto something Ray, there are two houses around the corner from me and one or the other of them has had t-p all over the tree in front of it before the last election and before this one. I thought it was just those pesky kids who didn't want to get off the lawn, but political reprisals in the form of teenage angst sounds more and more appealing.

[Chris Stow-Serge]

Walker Hines probably just messed up by putting your sign next to your house. His strategy is to put as many signs up in the neutral grounds and in front of houses he thinks are abandoned, for rent, or the people who just don't care. I know this for a fact because I've seen it happen. Walker put one in front of the A E Phi House on Broadway this summer before those girls tore it town this fall. ZBT and other fraternity houses were also targeted by Lil’Hines.

All of that is not important to me however, that’s just Louisiana politics. Here's what really bugs me about Walker Hines. While he did go to Country Day here in New Orleans he has been gone from the District for the last Four years. He started out his political career at George Washington University in D.C. He went there for two years. After deciding that he might want to run for State Representative however he decided he would transfer to Tulane. That was spring of '05.

We all know what happened that summer.

Walker Hines reaction was not to come home to a community in need. It was not to come back with Tulane in the Spring of '06. It was to run and hide at the University of Michigan. Walker Hines transferred to the University of Michigan rather than come back and rebuild the city he says is home.

In my book that makes him a coward not a leader. Lets send Walker Hines back to Michigan, not to our State House.

[ashley]

"at least with the yard signs I can figure out which neighbors are Republicans so we know which houses to egg on Halloween."

You can also look at the voting records by precinct. Since only one person voted for Peggy Wilson last election, and I only saw one Peggy Wilson sign in my district, I concluded that my eggs would best be spent at one house.

But, unlike Boulet and Couhig, Peggy didn't endorse Nagin.

[Waldorf]

NB: Chris works for some weirdo running in the district named Evan Wolf. I'm not sure how Evan qualified to run, since he doesn't meet the one-year residency requirement. He bought a house in the district less then a year before the qualifying date, and didn't actually move from his condo on Austerlitz street until a few months ago. (The condo is for sale now.)

He also claims to be a parishoner at a baptist church down the street from his District 95 address, but the deacons there say he shows up occasionally, and that it's weird that a white kid from Minnesota is all of a sudden going to a black Baptist church.

Among other things, Evan has been kicked out of naval flight school for lying about corrective laser eye surgery, maintains that he teaches a class in American foreign policy and the Middle East at UNO, despite the fact that they've never offered such a class and have no record of him teaching there, and pretended to be a current student at Tulane for 2 years after he graduated so he could be president of the college democrats.

Basically, Walker and Evan are two sides of the same coin. Ick.

[TUGRAD2005]

Walker and Una place signs on properties without asking for permission to get name exposure. Walker doesn’t have the experience he also has raised over $75,000 which leads me to believe he will owe favors to individuals, law firms, and business if he is elected. Under the leadership of Una Anderson the Orleans Public School Board has been a failure just imagine what would happen if she was on the state level. I am going to support Parker or Percy Marchand.

[Waldorf]

Oh, and Evan had to give back a bunch of the money he "raised" because he got it all from Mommy and Daddy in Minnesota. Not to mention the fact that he got some Tulane med student, "Erin Anderson," to run as a republican (presumably) in harebrained hopes of drawing votes away from Hines or Anderson.

I like Una or Percy, personally.