NORTHAMPTON -- Mayoral candidate Michael Bardsley, a former City Council president who narrowly lost a 2009 bid to unseat incumbent Mayor Mary Clare Higgins, took his campaign to the friendly skies over Paradise City on Saturday.
From late morning until early afternoon, the Bardsley campaign used a retro "taildragger" plane to tow a banner through the sky declaring, "A Mayor Should Be Elected, Not Selected."
The message was a jab at rival David Narkewicz, the current City Council president whose mayoral campaign is reportedly supported by Higgins. The lame-duck Higgins announced in March that she wouldn't seek a seventh term as mayor.
"This is the only airtime I can afford," Bardsley joked in a release.
"People practically break their necks to see what these things say," said Jerry Grant, owner of Northeast Aerial Advertising, which supplied the plane for the flyover.
"You can't not look at it," Grant said.
Aerial advertising has significantly declined due to tougher FAA restrictions after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but the Bardsley campaign claims the tactic is another "unconventional move" in its effort to defeat Narkewicz in the November election.
There was no immediate word from the Bardsley camp on whether the candidate might try aerial advertising again.
As of now, Bardsley and Narkewicz are the only candidates to replace Higgins in the November election.
Narkewicz, the council president, will assume the mayoral duties when Higgins leaves office in September to head a human services agency in Greenfield. Bardsley also sat in for Higgins on a number of occasions during his tenure as council president.
No comments:
Post a Comment