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Show Politics Has Average Country Publisher on Pins and Needles The average country publisher,' tluse days, is pretty fidgety. It's politics time, and he's between be-tween the Democrats and Republicans, Re-publicans, pros and cons, and the radicals and independents. He's the only guy in the community, com-munity, often in the county, who can print the handbills and cam-pagin cam-pagin cards, political advertisements advertise-ments and brochures. And usually he's the only one the candidates can turn to for assistance in writing writ-ing their campaign materials and helping them plan layouts, type . sizes, how much of the available J funds to spend on cards, handbills, hand-bills, advertisements, etc. And quite often he's a dirty stinker (if he operates an "independent" "in-dependent" newspaper) . . . the Republicans say he's a dirty Democrat and the Democrats say he's a !?)!&)!! Republican Repub-lican (seems the Democrats are sometimes a little more "forceful" "force-ful" in their description). But the country publisher enjoys en-joys it, and accepts impartiality as a challenge. He'll help a Demorcat write a good, effective campaign handbill, then a few hours later finds himself polishing polish-ing wording and phrasing for a Republican and has to help the Republican without giving away any Democratic campaign secrets (and vice versa). And after the handbill is distributed he is called upon by the opponents to help write an answer to it, which makes the challenge greater, for in writing the original material he knows he's going to be called on to help answer it and he has t sometimes a difficult task in phrasing the candidate's ideas in effective language without inserting insert-ing some of his own personal sentiments. And not the least of his worries wor-ries is keeping his friends from one political party out of the "backshop" while he's working on material for the opposing party. In his day-to-day (or wcek-to-week) world if one grocer groc-er walks into the shop while he's working on material for a competitor com-petitor he just lays a sheet of ! paper over the ad copy and all I is well. But with political campaigns cam-paigns the printed matter is scattered scat-tered over all available tables and counters while drying, and it's too dififcult to keep it from curious (and anxious) eyes. In the larger shops the front office is separated from the back-shop back-shop by partitions and closed doors, but in many of the smaller small-er shops it's just one big area. The Beaver County News office of-fice solved the problem by hanging a chain across the backshop entrance with a sign: "No Admittance to Backshop . . . Politics Now In Season." It's sometimes amusing, especially espe-cially when two opposing candidates candi-dates happen to meet at the printshop; and it's amusing trying to keep the candidates and their material separated; and it's inter ! esting, polishing the ideas of the different political thinkers; and it's always gratifying, . . . for no matter which candidate wins, the publisher can always say: "Well, my material must have been good . . . he's elected." |