When a “Vote Democratic” message appeared on a billboard above his business along Interstate 10, Clint Voigt was not a happy camper.
But Voigt felt better after he and friends added a GOP-friendly “Just Kidding” sign to a blank billboard under the Dems’ call to action.
Now they read “Vote Democratic” and beneath that, “Just Kidding.”
“A customer pointed it (original sign) out to my wife,” Voigt said. “I walked out there and I wasn’t very happy about that. It was right over my front door. It could’ve been anywhere else and I wouldn’t have cared.”
Voigt — owner of CGC Cerakote Services, a provider of Cerakote ceramic coatings for firearms, archery, marine and automotive parts located about 12 miles from Boerne near Comfort — sent a text out to a handful of friends, after noticing there was an empty, second billboard just underneath the Vote Democratic post.
“I asked them, ‘What could we do?’” Voigt said. His cousin, Boerne resident Nick Ferrell, replied, “Just put ‘Just Kidding’ up there,” Voigt said. “I was like, ‘Oh, man, that is perfect.’”
He contacted the billboard company, which had the signage ready in about seven days.
The “Vote Democratic” and “Just Kidding” billboards attracted attention right away — and not just in Kendall County.
“The Huffington Post called and asked about it,” said Voigt, who admitted he had never heard of the news website. Then, a day or two later, NewsNation asked if Voigt and Kendall County Democratic Party Chairwoman Laura Bray wanted to go on a live feed about it.
“I’d never heard of them, either. Some of my employees had,” he said. “So we did it, and I’m really glad I did. It’s been good exposure for us.”
Calls, texts, Instagram posts — responses poured in from everywhere.
“I’ve gotten calls that were very supportive, I’ve gotten donations from people. People from all over the country, have been contacting us,” Voigt said, adding, “It aired on some news station in India yesterday. This has going viral big time.”
He said he and Bray shared a chuckle about it — if NewsNation was looking for conflict, they didn’t get it from these two.
“Watching, you’d have thought Laura and I were lifelong friends. She got a good kick out of it,” he said.
Bray said the Huffington Post was made aware of the billboards during a Collin Allred U.S. Senate campaign rally in San Antonio. Allred, D-Dallas, represents U.S. House District 32 and is challenging incumbent Ted Cruz, a Republican, for his seat.
The Kendall County Democratic party sent a precinct representative to the event who showed a photo of the billboards to a Huffington Post reporter covering the rally.
“There were about three HuffPost tweets on it, and they received something like 60,000 posts,” Bray said.
That led to an expanded story on the HuffPost site, which went up Oct. 21.
“It has almost 800,000 views and has been one of the most clipped stories on its site this week,” she said. “We’re getting tremendous visibility out of this, which was the whole point of the exercise anyway.”
Voigt, who customized three guns for Donald Trump Jr., sent him a copy of the video.
“I said, ‘You ought to post this.’ He messaged back through Instagram, ‘Haha. Done,’” Voigt said. “After that, it really blew up.”
Voigt said a new sign is being prepared, but residents will just have to wait to see it.
The election is Nov. 5. Early voting ends Nov. 1.
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