Phil Busse stole McCain lawn signs in Minnesota during the 2008 presidential campaign. The prank made him infamous:
“Within hours, I received several hundred angry emails and phone calls, including three death threats. A man in Michigan yelled at me over the phone, calling me ‘sick’ and ‘demented,’ and informing me that he was going to go steal ten times as many Obama signs in retaliation. A man from Texas, who described himself as ‘a 29-year-old, 250-pound Republican,’ called me ‘little Phillip’ and offered to whoop my ass. A man in California told me to go play a long game of ‘go hide and fuck yourself,’ and warned that he was planning to exercise his Second Amendment right. Another man from Springfield, Oregon, left a voicemail message calling me ‘despicable’ and informing me that he would hunt me down if I returned to Oregon. Clearly, whatever message I had intended about visceral participation in politics was completely eclipsed by the messenger. In hindsight, this would be the third principle of public spectacle—and one that I was long overdue to have learned.”
