Quirky campaign moves aim to start conversation

A quirky campaign strategy can be memorable, and while it doesn’t always guarantee a vote in favor of the person or issue behind it, some are successful conversation starters.

Remember "Buddie," the superhero mascot with a green head shaped like a marijuana bud for ResponsibleOhio's marijuana legalization efforts in 2015?

What about a campaign T-shirt for a candidate you supported years ago?

There’s a reason people in Hanover Twp. have red ribbons tied to their front-yard trees. It’s because they support the two township levies on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Voters will decide this election if they want to support a 1.75-mill replacement and 1.75-mill additional fire and EMS levy, and a 1.75-mill levy to help pay for township operations.

In addition to traditional campaign methods — knocking on doors, passing out campaign literature and yard signs — the campaign committee is trying an old-school approach to garner support. Something a little quirky that will start a conversation, organizers said.

Kelly Derickson, one of two co-chairs of the levy campaign, said they were asking, “What can make us stand a part from all the look-a-like signs?”

The answer: plain red barricade tape.

“The response has been very good,” Derickson said, adding that several dozen trees in the community of 8,000 to 9,000 residents have the red ribbon around it.

University of Cincinnati political science professor David Niven said the red ribbon campaign is “a great idea because every campaign needs a good symbol.”

“It starts out as a curiosity and it can grow as a mark of solidarity that we’re all in this together,” he said.

As the ribbons are part of a door-to-door campaign to talk about the levy, Niven said that marrying of traditional person-to-person campaigning will make a typically fleeting interaction memorable.

“The ribbon leaves something behind … and it could be more effective than a sign,” he said. “Signs could get lost in the clutter.”

This year, an election with lots of races fighting for voters’ attention, down-ballot levy issues can get over looked, Niven said. It appears this is an imaginative approach”to not get lost in an otherwise busy political landscape,” he said.

Xavier University political science professor Mack Mariani said Hanover Twp.’s campaign strategy is likely to be more effective in a smaller community than a larger one. Hanover Twp., according to the 2010 Census, has more than 8,300 residents.

And eccentric campaign strategies have been tried over the years. Many have worked, many haven’t.

“My greatest achievement as campaign operative was to avoid being dressed as a chicken,” Mariani said, adding he recalls seeing a person dressed as a flip-flop during the John Kerry-George W. Bush election in 2004.

Then there are throwback campaign efforts to the pre-television days when candidates drove around town with attached loudspeakers. In a similar vein, Andrew Pappas, a small business owner running for Hamilton County Commission, has been seen around town in the PappasMobile, a converted ambulance.

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