Susan Pisani, Initiated Measure 10 Campaigner, Pretends She's the Godfather

What is it this week about right-wing nutbars from Southern California spouting off in e-mails to South Dakota bloggers?

I've been letting Pat Powers carry the water on Initiated Measure 10 (the Madville Times 2008 Voters Guide on all the issues and candidates is coming later this month). He's been doing a fine job covering the numerous problems with this proposed law since summer. There are some good aspects to the law, so I'm not quite ready to cast a final decision...

...but the feeble intimidation tactics of Susan Pisani, travel agent, Orange County transplant to Spearfish, and now West River IM10 campaign coordinator, are making me think I'll shed no tears if IM10 disappears in November. Powers posts this afternoon an e-mail he received from Pisani. In response to a post in which he questioned her loyalty to the state GOP, Pisani wrote the following:

I have all the local and state candidates’ signs on my front lawn as well as their bumper stickers on my car. On another note, why don’t you have a Dykstra or Lien bumper sticker next to your McCain stickers? And, why don’t you have any yard signs? I guess that is a personal choice and not how the State and Local Republican parties encourage members to participate. So we all have freedom of choice, which is why we all fight the fight. By the way, cute Corgi.

As Powers notes, Pisani is not a next-door neighbor with easy access to this information about Powers's yard, vehicle, and dog. It's not exactly the sort of public record one can Google. Powers draws the conclusion that Pisani must have sources paying particularly close attention to his house, and that Pisani's text is intended to intimidate.

More importantly, Powers makes this observation about the connection between such campaign tactics and the intent of the law those campaigners wish to pass:

The thing is, we should not be shocked. Initiated Measure 10 is all about intimidation. If passed, it will use threats of legal action to prevent the expression of free speech. If the AG won't prosecute, it uses threats of bypassing him in the process [Pat Powers, "Yes on 10 Campaign Uses Stalker Tactics to Try to Intimidate Opponent!" South Dakota War College, 2009.10.01].

Powers is referring to Section 8 of IM10: read it for yourself, see what you think.

Oh well. At best, Pisani is just playing tough, fantasizing she's a big-city mafiosa, come to show us small-towners who they do things downtown. But her words also demonstrate a lack of judgment that reflects poorly on the ballot measure she's trying to support.

p.s.: Pisani also thinks that's she's "following in Sarah Palin's footsteps." Yeah, have fun walking toward that cliff, Susan. (And memo to Susan: "blazed the trail" with that online government checkbook idea? Palin got the idea from Obama.)