George,

Ah, the inevitable reports of yard sign carnage. Political vandalism is as old as the republic. Historians tell us no election has been free of it. Having yard signs and bumper stickers destroyed keeps us in touch with our roots.

For much of the 20th century the Virginia Democratic Party meant the Byrd Machine, and issues like racism and crippling government frugality belonged to us. The Republicans were the party of Lincoln. As late as 1960 it was almost impossible to display a Republican poster or yard sign for more than a few days before it disappeared.

Then came the '60s and the civil rights revolution under JFK and LBJ. Harry Byrd Jr. was forced out of party leadership and became an independent. He took his loyal followers with him, and for the next two decades we saw in the Prog letters-to-the-editor in equal numbers complaining about vandalism to both parties.

But it was the Prog itself that committed the most amusing vandalism. It happened in 1970 the year after Byrd left the Democrats and ran for election to the US Senate as an Independent. Just the year before, any association with the Byrd Machine had been the kiss of death in the gubernatorial election. As a result, Virginia got its first Republican governor since reconstruction, A. (for Abner) Linwood Holton.

Buoyed by that shock, the Democrats and the Republicans both fielded senatorial candidates hopeful of retiring Young Harry in a 3-way race.

In the week before the election there appeared a full-page ad in the Prog stating it was paid for by the Democrats. It showed a voting machine with three names for US Senator, three levers, and three little square boxes. When "the Democrat's" ad ran, the down lever and the X box were by the name Harry Byrd Jr.

Was it a spoof ad, or was it a Democratic Party ad mysteriously changed? Maybe someone can tell us.

As New Yorker press critic A.J. Liebling famously said, "Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one," or in this case perhaps to the publisher, the genial Byrd Democrat Lindsay B. Mount. The Byrd Machine was far from dead. Statewide, Byrd won not by plurality but by majority, capturing about 52% of the vote.

By the 1980s, the Democrats had fully transitioned into the party of today, and the GOP eagerly courted the yahoo racists we left behind and their fellow traveler religion fundamentalists. Perhaps it's the children of the vandals who used to bedevil Republicans who are now bedeviling us.

Rey Barry (electronic mail, October 8, 2004)