Why political yard signs?

It didn't take long for Professor Erika to be victimized ... again.

As Chris Morris reported last Thursday, 1st district council candidate Vicki Denhart says that someone is stealing her signs; specifically, gone missing from Padgett-owned property (an entirely legal sign placement scenario, as opposed to the signs soon to be sprouting from the verges, which are city-owned rights-of-way) is a sign the size of this one:

As I try to imagine how a conniving Cappuccino-laden Copperhead snake might shake and slither such a sign to the ground -- perhaps it was merely ingested whole and swallowed -- permit this observation: We seem to be witnessing a veritable "arms race" when it comes to political signage sizes. Moreover, a Tribune website comment on the Denhart story hones in on the real point with admirable force:

jimgray wrote:

How bout NO SIGNS. I'm personally sick of seeing the proliferation of yard size signs on every available corner, right-of-way and telephone pole. Just about every possible profession, lawn services, cement purveyors, Nanny providers, groomers and yes, politicians place these signs any and everywhere. Nothing but visual pollution as far as i'm concerned.

Can't really steal a sign that's not there.

Bravo to that. I've always believed that the majority of illegally placed signs, as described by jimgray, constitutes street spam -- ripe for citizen's arrest and removal. Private property is another matter; in the absence of codes governing such placement, the ugliness must be tolerated. So it goes.

But we're missing the real issue: Why is visual pollution so enduring a component of political campaigns hereabouts? Has a yard sign every voted? Is there any reason to believe that hundreds of signs stacked atop each other at major intersections do anything except obstruct the view and cuase accidents?

The whole thing is idiotic. Consider the effusive irony of my receiving a postcard last week from Sampan, the Utica printing firm owned by folks who wouldn't consider voting for an unreconstructed leftist like me in one or more thousand years. In its first-ever known mailing to my address, Sampan asks me to consider buying Jumbo Yard Signs. I'm guessing this is because I'm now in a political race, and having filed, the very first thing I must do is blanket the landscape with trash.

Perhaps I must. Must I? Candidate Denhart claims to have already spent $1,200 on yard signs. I'd be tempted to ask how a low-paying city council seat could possibly be worth that much money, except that it's a question she herself generally places in the mouth of her alter ego, Erika, and uses to pillory her opponents.

The ironies are proliferating, too. Unfortunately, they may be the only things that grow here on the flood plain.