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Oct

11

Seen in Ohio: Presidential political yard signs go negative


Maybe this sounds petty, but this afternoon, shlepping one of my kids to and from a music lesson, I saw two political yard signs in front of a residence.  The home is one a fairly busy two-lane road that goes through many towns, all the way from the city of Cleveland out through many suburbs and into another county which some people might consider the exurbs.  One sign was in the standard McCain/Palin blue background style, but the other? It said “NOBAMA” with a diagonal slash through the “O.”  I can’t recall if it was like this or this.

I got upset.  That sign really bothered me, and still bothers me. I can’t recall ever seeing a sign that sent the message to not vote for a particular candidate.  I’ve seen plenty of “Vote No on Issue #x” or “Vote Against [fill in the issue like "casinos"],” but I can’t recall ever seeing something like the “NOBAMA” sign.  That’s not to say that they aren’t out there or haven’t been out there, but I can’t recall ever seeing one.

Political speech is protected speech and in fact, I just got my own city to repeal an unconstitutionally restrictive political yard sign ordinance and replace it with a slightly more agreeable one (they upped the number of yard signs from one per household to three), even though I know the conventional wisdom is that yard signs don’t win races.

But still, when I see such signs, I think to myself, “Why would someone do that? Why would someone put something negative out there like that?”  Suggesting that people actually cast a vote against an issue, which is how you do in fact vote when issues are involved (you vote “yes” or “no”) is different than voting for a candidate for an elected office.  Why? Because you don’t cast a vote against a candidate, you can only mark your vote “for” someone.  That’s just the way the system works.  Now, of course, when you are saying yes to one candidate, you are implicitly saying no to another.

A bloggy friend of mine suggested that there aren’t all that many candidates whose names start with “O,” but here in Cuyahoga County, we get a good number of O’Malleys, O’Neills, etc.   For example, I just looked at our county’s Judge4yourself.com site (a great place to learn about the judicial candidates), I found an O’Connor.  When I look at Ohio Daily Blog’s list of all 2008 candidates in the Ohio House, I found Otterman, Oelslager and Okey.  I think the scarcity defense doesn’t quite cut it, with all due respect to my friend.

But still, there’s just something unsavory to me about putting out a sign that explicitly says “NOBAMA.”  I can’t quite put my finger on it – can you?

By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:10 pm October 11th, 2008 in Barack Obama, Campaigning, John McCain, Ohio, Politics, Sarah Palin, WH2008 

Comments

6 Responses to “Seen in Ohio: Presidential political yard signs go negative”

  1. 1 LisaRenee on October 11th, 2008 5:46 pm

    I’ve seen quite a few Nobama signs, but there are also these

    I guess the question would be are these wrong too?

    It looks as if these signs have been out in the Cleveland area for over a month according to this:

    http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=97616

  2. 2 Jill Miller Zimon on October 11th, 2008 6:31 pm

    Thank you! I have not seen any of those re: No McCain and I hadn’t seen or seen referenced the WKYC article either – you are so good. Very interesting.

    Yeah – it was just how I felt/what I thought as I passed it going to and from the shlep. Just looked weird to me but maybe that’s because seeing multiple signs in any yard near my house has been the exception until…this year! lol In fact, one of my kids asked me if I was sorry I’d gotten that ordinance changed because about five houses away is a house with two McCain signs and another with three Josh Mandels. :)

    For the record, we have no yard signs up. Yet. I’m on the fence with them.

  3. 3 LisaRenee on October 11th, 2008 8:28 pm

    Well, I don’t have nearly as many as I had in 2006 – I had over 40 of them but I have some signs up for local candidates and of course my Hillary sign is still in the window box.

    :-)

    There are several McCain signs up around including one I’d not seen “Another Family for McCain” and two Obama signs, one had been up as long as my Hillary sign, one is new. And we still have one Ron Paul sign.

  4. 4 Jill Miller Zimon on October 11th, 2008 8:31 pm

    Ok – now wait a minute – 40 yard signs, in one yard, all at the same time? Seriously? That is some serious political speaking!!!

  5. 5 kegbot1 on October 12th, 2008 12:13 am

    Oh man, you should get out my way. Take US 6 through Willoughby Hills. There’s a nutbar who lives just before the Chagrin River bridge going eastbound. He has festooned the area around the highway where his driveway ends with a myriad of pro-Palin and McCain signs but the most prominent among his signs (and they’ve been up for months) is “I’m a bitter gun owner and I vote.” There’s a certain air of viciousness in the whole display as if he’s daring passersby to disagree with him at their peril.

    Not as bad as some of the TV ads I’m seeing. There’s a new one I’m seeing from “The Committee For Truth in Politics” that I’ve seen several times this evening that all but accuses Obama of murdering live children. The backdrop of the ad is video of adorable infants. The woman reading the ad says the following:

    Senator Obama, why did you vote against protecting infants that survived late term abortions? Not once, but four times.

    Even Congress unanimously supported protections identical to those you blocked in Illinois.

    The Supreme Court upheld the ban on partial birth abortions, and yet today you keep working to roll back this law.

    Call Senator Obama tell him to stop trying to overturn these basic human rights.

    The Committee for Truth in Politics is responsible for the contents in this advertising.

    Kos debunks it here:

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/3/132237/132/294/619061

  6. 6 LisaRenee on October 12th, 2008 1:47 am

    I sent you the picture of when there were two rows, we then went to three and a few more in the windows. It was when my neighborhood figured out I was political.

    :-)

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