Political Yard Sign Wars Wage as Election Nears 248
gollum123 writes "Yahoo has a story on how tension among bitterly divided voters is translating into a barrage of attacks on political targets that can't talk back - yard signs. Campaign signs depicting support for either President Bush (news - web sites) or Democratic challenger John Kerry (news - web sites) are being burned, chopped down, spray-painted and commonly, stolen away in the dark of night. Though sign shenanigans are common in election years, some Republican leaders are calling this year's activity unprecedented. Democratic leaders say attacks are so rampant that supporters should take their yard signs inside at night to protect them. Has anyone on /. had such an experience."
So far, my sign has survived (Score:4, Interesting)
Happily, my sign has stood proudly in the yard, untouched by anyone else, as far as I can tell. During that time, more signs for the opposition have sprung up, and only one for the same candidate as mine.
On the other hand, the local news apparently carried a story about a local whose signs had been repeatedly stolen. So she put one up and hung a sign underneat it that said "Every time you steal my sign, I make a bigger donation to my candidate." That apparently stopped the rascals from stealing any more signs.
Finally, I have watched with interest the signs people put up in the median of the road, on what is clearly public land. It appears to me that people find it acceptable to put their own signs on that land, and also that others find it acceptable to take down a sign and put up their own opposing sign. I've never seen anyone taking one down, however, so perhaps it is the state authorities coming along and cleaning up their land.
Wife heard a good one on Al Franken's show... (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently he'd been removing signs in this neighborhood, and was going to cross the driveway when he tripped over a chain the homeowner had there for some unknown, but presumably logical reason. Since he was clutching the signs, he couldn't quickly get his arms out front to break his fall, so he hit his head and knocked himself out.
The police charged him with numerous petty crimes. His wife said, "He's never done anything like this, before."
Given that this is the good old US of A, I'm surprised he hasn't sued the homeowner for having that chain there.
Plagarism (Score:1, Interesting)
Quite the opposite (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I Never Saw... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd guess it has something to do with the way people take their cues from others around them in weighing how safe a decision is. When the weakly committed voters go into the booth, they are less likely to falter if they feel others are with them. When the undecideds vote, that same sense of confidence is going to make it easier to jump to a candidate that has wide apparent support.
My experiences slightly different (Score:4, Interesting)
My parents house (was living with them at the time) is on a farm, with a pretty heavily traveled road through it. We had the problem of the other side putting signs up on our property. We would take them down, to find more in their place a couple of days later. I lost count of how many signs we removed, as they kept on replacing them.
It was not public land, they had no right to put them there, and we had every right to remove them.
They were Gore/Lieberman signs.
Both Signs get Destroyed (Score:4, Interesting)
All of them get trashed. the Bush/Cheney more often (4 signs down so far). But we live in a college town so such things are expected on Friday nights. Luckily, the Republicans here don't charge for signs, while the Democratic's charged $3 for the Kerry/Edwards signs, which get stolen/trampled/set on fire much less often.
I figure if I call up the local RNC/DNC offices and tell them of my tails of woe, they'll hook me up with some really huge, gaudy signs. With huge defense lasers and remote-controlled carpet bombing capabilities. That'll stop'm.
it's Duopoly strategy (Score:3, Interesting)
This happens every time. Each election becomes "the most important/critical of our lifetime!" This way the parties whip us into an incoherent frenzy, creating a bitter partisan rivalry (between two sides that are really not all that much different) so that they can entrench their power that much more. Drive home that identity, so that it becomes more important than actually thinking about issues. "Damn the issues, my team must win no matter what it takes!"
Meanwhile, third parties like Libertarians, Greens, and Constitutionalists peacefully and thoughtfully debate real issues [peroutka2004.com] with very little rancor between them. Where else do you see a candidate defer to another who is probably the most ideologically removed from him to explain a point?
Independently thinking Americans are anathema to the Duopoly - a threat to their power. Why do you think they try to marginalize third parties through ballot access restrictions, debate exclusions, not addressing the voting system shortcomings? The Duopoly likes voters who blindly believe whatever they're told. Do yourself, and America, a favor on Nov 2 - vote third party.
Re:Wife heard a good one on Al Franken's show... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wife heard a good one on Al Franken's show... (Score:2, Interesting)
Why would I want to reverse the downward spiral? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:My car (Score:4, Interesting)
I haven't heard any conservative talk show hosts advocating violence or property destruction against their opponents.
You must live in a tame part of the world.
This particular sample
is typical of what I hear on nationally syndicated radio. The leftists are usually confined to local FM college stations, and at odd hours.To be fair, the leftists do call Bush a criminal in some cases, but I haven't heard any local radio host call for Bush's imprisonment with quite the same vitriol that Michael Savage uses, nor to as large an audience.
Re:Don't assume it's always the "other guys"... (Score:4, Interesting)
What a slimy bastard.
Re: Wife heard a good one on Al Franken's show... (Score:3, Interesting)
> some local candidate got caught personally removing his
> opponent's signs.
Here in Dallas, Tom DeLay, the Republican Speaker of the House, forced redistricting in Texas in order to shore up more seats for Republicans. This blatant gerrymandering resulted in two incumbents being in the same district: Democrat Martin Frost and Republican Pete Sessions.
Earlier this year, a bunch of Frost's signs were found all over Pete Sessions' son's school. Frost accused Sessions of stealing his signs and sticking them at his son's school. Sessions conversely accused Frost of putting his signs at his son's school for reasons unknown.
It appeared to be a classic example of he said - he said. That is, until the Frost campaign released a police report that indicated that a few years before, the Republican had been pulled over with his vehicle full of his opponent's yard signs! The police officer let Sessions off with a warning.
Sessions had a lot of explaining to do after that.
The War on Terror is my reason to vote for Kerry (Score:2, Interesting)
When Clinton was president he had a meeting about terrorism and Al Qaida at least once a week, sometimes everyday. Bush didn't have one meeting about terrorism in 7 months before 9/11. He appointed Cheney to head an anti-terrorism task-force, it never met once.
Hindsight is 20/20. Were strategic mistakes made? Of course. Analysts are human. Military officials are human. George W. Bush is human. Hence, mistakes were made.
Many of the problems were predicted in a report by the state department. It warned against allowing looting and disbanding the military. The Bush administration ignored it. The civilian administration in Iraq is being run by 20 year old kids who had applied to be interns at the Heritage Foundation.
Some of these criticisms even fall out of the president's scope at times such as: the flu vaccine shortage or the Abu Graive prision abuse.
Bush had Whitehouse lawyers write papers on how he could legally allow prisoners to be tortured.
The government of Iran just endorsed Bush, probably because he took care of their main enemy.
Bush is using 9/11 for his own political advantage, he acts like its the best thing that happend to him. It was an inteligence failure that happend on his watch. Roosevelt never used Perl Harber in his campaign for reelection, it was a failure. Roosevelt had investigations into Perl Harber, Bush tried repetedly to block the 9/11 commision. Now the Bush administration is preventing a CIA report on 9/11 from being released untill after the election.
Town gets involved (Score:2, Interesting)
This was the type of sign that required a post to be pounded into the ground. The person that drove over it bent the small metal stake, so I returned shortly with some string and a large hammer to fix it. As I was finishing up this very quick work, a Toyota pickup stopped on the other side of the road. I thought it might be my neighbor asking what I was doing to his sign. The man very rudely and abruptly blurted out "what are you doing?". I explained that it appeared someone had run the sign over, and I was fixing it. He then told me it was in the "right of way" and said "take it down".
LOL
I did have a hard time containing myself. At this point he whips out his business card, showing he is a town official. He told me that "local zoning" prevents anything placed in the public right of way (you know, that twelve feet of grass that the town/state owns on the side of the road). I told him that he was messing with First Amendment rights here, that political free speech was expecially protected by our courts, and that if the local Selectmen wanted to take on the First Amendment, then God bless 'em. I also pointed out that there are about 1000 signs in this stuck-up little village I live in, that are all, without exception, in the so-called "right of way", that I was only standing up a broken sign, not erecting it, yet none of this mattered to the town official.
It became plain to him fairly quickly that I was telling him to go pound sand, so he left in a huff, headed straight for the town offices like a crying kid running to mama. I decided to phone the town manager.
The town manager explained that "complaints were coming in" and that some of these signs were not "acceptable". The town manager told me it was in fact a state law, not local zoning, that was in play here. I told him that the Constitution was a federal deal that trumps whatever attempt a state might make to squash free political speech, and that in any event, he was not applying the law equally, as it was ONLY ME and the sign I was fixing that was getting their attention.
This is not over. There will be a selectmens meeting "after the election", according to the town manager, where the issue of "unwanted" and "illegal" signs will be brought up. I plan to be there, and I plan to point out that these are temporary signs, not unlike real estate broker signs, "sandwichboard" signs that advertise town happenings of all types, yard sale signs, etc. etc. etc. that are all, pretty much without exception, in this so-called "right of way" grass on the side of the road.
This is not supposed to happen in New Hampshire, where we live by the motto "Live Free of Die". It's even on our license plates. Now, I do live in a snobbby, affluent town, and I can appreciate that they want the town to be as quaint and as attractive as possible, but this incident completely crosses the line. My nest has been stirred, and the town officials will probably live to regret it, as I am now VERY much going to be paying attention to a lot of what they do.