This is a pretty awesome catch by Tina Dupuy of FishbowlLA:
What does it mean when all of your protest signs are on the same paper in the same handwriting with the same colored markers - donning the same slogans in different cities on allegedly different days? It means your spontaneous organic grassroots movement is totally on the same page! Solidarity!
Indeed, identical slogans at multiple rallies, in different cities, on different days, would seem to suggest a little bit of...how to put this...collaboration between the "spontaneous protests" and the campaign of GOP Senate nominee Carly Fiorina.
The best part of the story isn't the fairly clear way in which the Fiorina campaign appeared to manufacture protests against her Democratic opponent. Anyone with experience on even a local city council campaign knows that kind of stuff goes on. Hell, I am sure some staffers and volunteers for Andrew Jackson's campaign headed out for some "spontaneous voter revolts" aimed at President John Quincy Adams, for crying out loud.
The best part of the story is that Team Fiorina is sticking to their version of events, emailing FishbowlLA to deny coordination. The staffer in question did parse words a little bit, though, saying that:
"The protest signs you wrongly identified as astroturf material were created by campaign supporters at each protest location--Monterey, Fresno, San Diego and Sacramento--and used only for that protest."
Except no one claimed that the exact signs were recycled. Just the sign format and slogans (and some awfully similar looking handwriting and choices of colors, but I digress).
Why in the world is the Fiorina camp fighting this? Quite clearly, team Carly is all-in on generating the notion that there is the spontaneous wave of anti-Boxer people in the Golden State who are so fed up that they have taken to the streets.
The Fiorina campaign pretending that they had no involvement is just dumb.
I mean, really guys? Fiftysomething white guys commonly use the phrase "epic fail" when they make signs?
People create their own slick "blimp"-like balloons advertising an anti-Boxer website?
Why deny something so bloody obvious?
UPDATE/NOTE: From the comments, I noted a couple of people said these two photos in question were from the same place. They appear to be: I went with those two because they illustrated the "Epic Fail" guy who I'd bet a Happy Meal has never used that phrase in his life, and the balloon/blimp. If you click on the FishbowlLA link, you will see the examples of signs with the astonishing parallel sloganeering in different cities on different days.
UPDATE II: Several commenters noticed (and the snarky among you even praised) the lack of spelling errors in these signs, which runs in such deep contrast to some previous and well-loved protest efforts from the right (i.e. "Get A Brain, Morans!").
Alas, I must regrettably call your attention to the sign in the middle...