Some county residents say the corrosive tone of the Berkshire District Attorney race has moved from press releases and social media posts to real life.
The remaining two candidates for Berkshire District Attorney — Democratic primary winner Andrea Harrington and incumbent DA Paul Caccaviello — both declared their candidacy in March.
“I’ve been living here about 27 years. I’ve been involved for a long period of time in different elections, and I have never experienced the heightened negativity and ugliness of this election," said Shirley Edgerton, a community organizer in the county. She’s a board member of the NAACP Berkshire County Branch who also serves as the Cultural Proficiency Coach for Pittsfield Public Schools. On October 23rd, she made a post on Facebook directed at “whoever is trying to bully or intimidate me by trespassing and hurling Andrea Harrington [signs] out of the yard, [and] destroying and knocking over my flowers.”
“The signs were taken off the metal piece in front of my yard, thrown into driveways and different front lawns of my neighbors," Edgerton told WAMC. "They’d come into the yard and knock over my plants that were in baskets and then pluck flowers off — out of other pots.”
Edgerton refrained from direct accusations as to who was behind the vandalism, but she said that “clearly it’s someone that’s in not in agreement with my current decision to embrace and support Andrea Harrington for district attorney.”
Suggesting that the national political tenor had trickled down to the county level, Edgerton demanded more from local politicians.
“The candidates have to take some responsibility for those who are following them,” she said.
Her post included a quote from Georgia Congressman John Lewis, a civil rights leader who was beaten and arrested as he pushed for equal rights.
“I take my role as an African American woman living in this community very serious, and I want to educate those who are perpetrating this act — I want them to know that I appreciate and I respect those who have fought to ensure that I’m able to vote,” said Edgerton.
For his part, Caccaviello, who is running as a write-in candidate on Nov. 6th, says his campaign has received reports of vandalized signs as well.
“The reality is, is that we’ve both have signs out since the summer," the DA told WAMC. "So some of this — we’ve had reports of signs damaged or missing, and then they find them later because the wind or weather. So, you know — my understanding is that it’s the nature of the beast, when you have these signs out that long it’s going to happen. But obviously you want people to be respectful of other people’s property.”
“We move from a phase where we were having a really healthy phase of the issues now to a phase that seems to be more based on personal attacks,” said Harrington. She takes issue with Caccaviello’s characterization of the vandalism, tying the fate of Edgerton’s signs to larger issues in the campaign.
“I think there’s a false equivalency here being made, because I talk about the issues — I don’t make personal attacks against people, I don’t put out press releases with false information in them, I don’t encourage — people that are part of my inner circle are not writing letters to the editor calling people names, whereas my opponent, those are the kind of tactics that they’re using because they’re desperate,” the Democratic primary victor told WAMC.
When WAMC last spoke with Edgerton, she said a new yard sign for Harrington had yet to be disturbed.
“It’s just hard to comprehend that this is where we are in terms of promoting the candidate of our choice,” she said.
