I’m quite the political junky, and have been since I first started hanging around campaign offices in high school. At various points, I have campaigned for each of the Liberals, the Progressive Conservatives, the New Democrats, and the Canadian Alliance. Currently, I’m a jaded pseudo-independent who delights in torturing the candidates who come knocking on my door with technical and nuanced questions about obscure aspects of their party’s platform. For me, election time is like Christmas mixed with Hanukkah mixed with my birthday. I’m not sure how my poor wife puts up with me- thankfully, it’s a less than annual occurrence, sort of like a pon’far for political geeks (bonus points to anyone who actually understands that reference).
But there’s one thing that really grinds my gears- election signs. I eat up all things political, from the dirtiest attack ads to the most inane platforms promises, but election signs are almost enough to make me to put down my hoity-toity national newspaper, crack open a cheap domestic beer, and switch off Newsworld in favour of some vacuous reality show like Survivor or Milf Island.
Most forms of campaigning impart some level information, some substance. Those leaflets may be trite, but at least they convey some basic principles beneath the layers of spin and self-promotion. Websites, phone calls, and door to door ideology salesmen all offer at least the potential for insight and a modicum of information. An election sign? It’s just a name on a stick.
I guess the appeal of a barrage of signs is that it squarely takes aim at the lowest common denominator of electoral decision making- name recognition. For that small portion of voters with the initiative to show up on polling day but who lack the desire to take even a passing interest in the issues of the day, this may be an effective tactic. For the rest of the electorate, these signs are nothing more than blight on our pristine and beautiful road medians. While I accept that the tactic of plastering the landscape with political colours is de rigeur, I can’t help but find it a tad insulting and patronizing, not to mention an abhorrent waste of money and physical resources. Do I really want to elect a leader who thinks that the best way to sell me on his ideas is to keep screaming his name at me? Perhaps just as importantly, can I really elect a person to run this country and keep his or her hands on the national purse strings when s/he views spending 20% or more of the entire campaign budget on election signs as a prudent and wise use of limited funds? It’s expensive, it’s wasteful, and it shows both bad judgment and a lack of creativity.
I suppose it’s not all in vain, though. I once knew an older Italian man with a real green thumb who loved election time, and would collect signs from every candidate to place on his front lawn. To the passerby, the mix of signs ranging from Conservative to Communist must have seemed to be a bit of a paradox, or the sign of a house divided. But those in the know appreciated his tactic- when the election was over, those signs (or more accurately, the wooden stakes from the signs) would be quickly recycled for use as stakes for his tomato garden. Maybe election signs aren’t all about name recognition after all, but are instead about appealing to the frugality of amateur botanists.
I’m still undecided in this election, which is quite unusual for me. I can’t seem to make up my mind based on the party platforms or the individual candidates, so I just might end up voting for the candidate with the fewest number of signs littering my beautiful city. If that has me voting for the Marxist-Leninist Party, or the Christian Heritage Party, or (god forbid!) the NDP, so be it. As Gandhi once said, you need to be the change you want to see in the world, and this is a change that is long overdue.
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