Knowing them by the company they keep

Intersection crowded with campaign signs in Casper.  In this case, this grouping only means that the ground belongs to the Department of Transportation.

I've touched on this already, but more this election, than ever before, I'm relying on election signs.

And not the way a person might think.

A man is known by the company he keeps

Aesop

I'm frankly counting people out if their signs appear in common frequency with people I know that I can't vote for. If every time I see a sign for Commissioner X, in association with Gubernatorial candidate Y, and I'm not ever going to vote for Y, I'm not going to vote for X either.

Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

 Proverbs 13:20

That may be unfair. . .well, no its not.  If people who are so dedicated enough to put up multiple signs for candidates almost without fail do this, there's something to it.

Normally I'd try to assess each candidate for an office that will be on a ballot individually, while noting that this is actually very difficult to do in Wyoming as you vote for an incredible number of offices down to the local level (this will be the topic of another post, but I really wonder if some of this is antiquated in the modern era, particularly when we're voting for local clerical offices).  But this year my task is made easier by the fact that there are candidates whose signs occur so persistently with candidates that I won't vote for, that I don't really need to assess them.  The linking can't be accidental.

Leave the presence of a fool, for there you do not meet words of knowledge.

Proverbs 14:7

Now, there are exceptions, I will grant. But they are rare.

Somebody in my neighborhood that I somewhat know to be a dedicated Trump loyalist quixotically has up signs for every Democrat running for anything.  But I also know that they're Texans who recently relocated and they pretty much fit the old Southern Democrat mold.  I'm completely discounting their views on politics, but it's pretty apparent that they're general feeling is that they back Democrats probably because their great, great, great, grandfather Beauregard T. Succession did prior to his untimely death at the Battle of Glorieta Pass. It's a cultural thing.

That means, in other words, not much at all.

I do not sit with men of falsehood, nor do I consort with hypocrites. I hate the assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked.

 Psalm 26:4-5

But, by and large, association really means something.

Do not be deceived: Bad company ruins good morals.

First Corinthians 15:33

I wonder if candidates really realize this?  It's really easy, at some point in a race, to convince yourself of your own probable victory and to quite listening to critics.  You see this in campaigns all the time.  People congratulate you for what you are doing, sincerely or not, and pretty soon you are convinced you will win and can branch out to bask in the glory of the probable victory of the like minded.

Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare.

Proverbs 22:24-25

Never really realizing that you were in an individual fight, as every candidate is, and if you join your battle to the battle of another, who is running for a larger office perhaps, or just who draws different attention, you may be drawing just as many enemies as friends.

As regards a "fellow-traveller", the question always comes up – How far will he go? This question cannot be answered in advance, not even approximately. The solution of it depends, not so much on the personal qualities of this or that "fellow-traveller", but mainly on the objective trend of things during the coming decade.

Leon Trotsky

And those enemies become enemies for good reason.