Thoughts after Election Day

November 14, 2007

I don’t have any pets.

But I do have pet peeves.

One of them occurs every year right after election day.

It concerns campaign signs and posters.

The first Tuesday of November is election day. For weeks, if not months, leading up to this event, we are bombarded with signs, posters and placards promoting each of the candidates running for office. Most of these signs are stuck in the ground along roadways that people travel every day. Thus, they are unavoidable. For the most part, all one sees while driving by is the last name of the candidate. Presumably, if you see the same name often enough, you will recognize it on the ballot when you enter the voting booth. To me, this Pavlovian reaction of pressing the lever for a familiar name, usually without knowing anything about the candidate, does little to promote democracy. The winner is just the person with the best ad campaign. At least the person who blindly votes a party line has a reason, albeit a stupid one, for selecting the candidate. Those who vote for someone only because they recognize the name, only encourage more roadside advertising. I doubt this is what our founding fathers had in mind.

I ran for local office in 1985 on the Democratic ticket with an independent line endorsement. I got more votes on the Democratic line than my Republican opponent did on his line, but lost the election because his Conservative line votes beat my independent tally. The day after the election, I traveled throughout my town, in the rain, taking down my campaign posters. My name was the middle name on the three person ticket and I felt an obligation to remove the signs as soon as possible.

Today, eight days after the last election, I am still confronted with political campaign signs as I drive to work. If I had my way, I’d fine the candidate, whether he won or lost, for every day, beginning a week after the election, that his or her signs or posters remained in public view. I would make an exception for those on private property or in store windows, but any signs on telephone poles, public roadways or anywhere else in public view, would cause the fine to be imposed.

The only saving grace, at least for now, is that most of the signs are in English.