The Gainesville mayoral election is on March 16, and Richard Selwach, the owner of Best Jewelry & Loan Pawnbrokers, has decided to throw his hat in the ring.
Lucky for the Alligator, Selwach—who has decided not to accept campaign contributions beyond his own money—has decided to spend some of his electoral war chest on a column inch’s worth of advertising in the print edition of the paper:
Here’s a bigger shot of Selwach’s ad:
Yep. “Legalize it… Don’t criticize it!,” against a couple of cannabis leaves, appears to be Selwach’s big play for the college kid vote. It’s almost patronizing, as if college students will just respond Pavlovianly to anything related to pot. Worse still, Selwach doesn’t even use the word “marijuana” or “pot” in the ad, nor does it appear anywhere in the text of his campaign Web site—suggesting Selwach is a man who likes the attention being pro-pot offers but doesn’t have anything substantive to add to the conversation.
Katie Adamson, a UF student, wrote a letter to the editor that appeared in the Feb. 23 Alligator calling him out on this; she wrote that if Selwach is “going to stand up for an issue as heated and as important as the legalization of marijuana,” he should “do so boldly.”
But that’s the thing: he’s not actually standing up for the legalization of marijuana, boldly or not. And besides, there’s something a little insincere about touting one’s support of marijuana legalization—and presenting it as if it’s the centerpiece of your platform—in a political ad when running for mayor of Gainesville. It’s like running ads saying that you’re totally against the war in Iraq when running for Alachua County School Board Member: Good for you, but even if you’re elected, I’m not so sure you’re really going to be able to do anything about it. In other words, it’s just a cheap way to get cheap publicity.
In Selwach’s defense, his platform does include a brief, one-line mention of his support for PUFMM (or People United for Medical Marijuana), a Florida-based political action committee that is seeking to amend the Florida state constitution to legalize medical marijuana. (Gandhi’s “You must be the change you wish to see in this world” quote appears on their home page.)
But even if we give Selwach some credit for mentioning PUFMM, it’s important to note that PUFMM’s stated objective is allowing access to medical marijuana for patients—and not, as Selwach’s vague ad ostensibly indicates, outright legalization. And in an online campaign video, he calls for the decriminalization of marijuana, which would keep marijuana illegal, but treat possession of pot as an offense only worth a fine. This strange equivocation on Selwach’s part throws his earnestness—or his education—on the issue into question.
More on that campaign video: It’s inexplicably titled “Pawn Shop Heart”—which, if I’m not mistaken, is a heart that’s been hocked to pay off gambling debts—and it begins with, “Yeah, okay, my name is Richard Selwach.” In the video, he goes on to note that people like his “rugged individualism” and that “he’s fighting every day to be a free man.”
This isn’t Selwach’s first stab at running for local office. Last year, he ran for a seat on the Gainesville City Commission, losing in spectacular fashion in a five-way race with just over 6 percent of the vote.
He shelled out some bucks to take out print ads in the Alligator back then as well; instead of marijuana legalization, though, he came out in favor of Charter Amendment 1, a local ballot question that would have eliminated citywide anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people. Those pushing for Charter Amendment 1 dubiously argued that such protections would allow sexual predators to enter women’s bathrooms with impunity. (The ballot question failed by 16 percentage points.)
Here’s one such ad that appeared in the Alligator on March 3, 2009, in which he calls transgender people “perverts”:
And here's another that appeared on March 4, 2009, in which, through a sleight-of-hand trick, tries to reframe the issue not as an LGBT discrimination issue, but as one about discriminating against women and children:
Speaking entirely apolitically, it’s just bad advertising to run campaign ads in which you warn people about a “pervert’s freedom of sexual expression” and “keep[ing] men out of women’s public facilities” when the very same ad features a mug shot-esque photo of you, staring stony-faced into the camera.
I know what you’re thinking: Why spend so much time picking apart the inept political advertising of a local wannabe politician whose vanity candidacy is doomed to failure? Well, first, it’s kind of funny, in a sad way. And Selwach’s “use an irrelevant issue to get attention” political strategy is one employed by politicians at every level of government all the time, so it’s worth calling out whenever it happens.
But mostly it’s worth noting because Selwach is engaged in some pretty smart advertising for his pawn shop. His campaign headquarters, after all, just so happens to be his business, which he encourages voters to visit—to talk about the campaign, I’m sure. After his failed bid for City Commissioner last year, Selwach mentioned that his candidacy resulted in more publicity for his business, saying he had “a line out the door” and that he “can’t buy this type of advertising.” Sure he can, though—the price is one faux local political campaign.
That’s some non-traditional advertising at which I can marvel, if not exactly get behind. So restrained kudos, Selwach—have fun playing around and enjoy the bump in business. Just try not to get too much in the way of the candidates who are serious about the whole mayor thing.
