Signs, Signs, Everywhere There’s Signs
The opinion-leaders at the News Journal are very, very interested in campaign signs. Ron Williams gave a “review” of the signs in Sunday’s NJ:
Right now, I’d say it’s a draw between Rep. Mike Castle, running for the Biden Senate seat, and Michele Rollins, who’s running for Castle’s House seat. (Neither one says they’re Republicans, as best as I can tell.)
Castle’s signs are bold green and came out of nowhere almost overnight from Laurel to Claymont.
Rollins’ equally bold placards are trimmed in colors and leave little doubt whose candidacy is touted.
Both Rollins’ and Castle’s bigger signs look to be about 4 x 8 in size, quite the eye catchers.
…
The losers, thus far, are Glen Urquhart (too small), Rollins’ primary opponent, treasurer Velda Jones-Potter (they suffer from dehydration, just as she did the night of her scheduled radio debate), primary opponent Chip Flowers (pygmy size), Sheriff Mike Walsh (ditto) and his primary opponent Trinny Navarro (I can’t find one).
Another winner is the guy either Flowers or Jones-Potter will face, state Sen. Colin Bonini (Big, flashy, blue and white).
Trinidad Navarro signs are all over my neighborhood. Perhaps Williams didn’t bother to drive outside of his normal commute? I’ve also seen big Urquhart and Flowers signs and I have no idea what Williams means about Jones-Potter’s signs. They look like everyone else’s except they have her picture.
In yesterday’s paper Harry Themal was also concerned about signs. He’s very concerned about the legality of the signs.
Glen Urquhart and Velda Jones-Potter must not read their own campaign websites, glenfor liberty.com and votevelda.com, respectively, or they would have known their primary-election signs may be illegal.
Urquhart and his supporters plastered a plethora of red-and-white signs at the Harvey Road exit of Interstate 95 and at various spots in Dover. They don’t tell anyone he’s running in the Sept. 14 primary for the GOP congressional nomination against Michele Rollins. Jones-Potter’s partisans have planted a giant sign along I-95 that hails her re-election bid as state treasurer, but doesn’t say she’s running in a Democratic primary against Chip Flowers.
Themal then discusses the laws on sign placement but never gets around to saying what rules he’s accusing Jones-Potter and Urquhart of violating. Is it sign placement?
I can’t wait for today’s installment of campaign signs review. I just don’t think I can get enough of this very important subject.
Tags: Harry Themal, News Journal, Ron Williams
It is so much easier to drive around and report on campaign signs, than to actually attend a debate and write about it.
Update: Oh, here it is:
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100824/NEWS/8240339
Ron Williams had the most ridiculous take on signs in his last column. What a stupid waste of ink that was. Really Bad.
One of the first things they teach you in politics school is signs don’t vote. Yes, this is Delaware, we’re tiny and there’s no TV in New Castle without paying Philly prices, but signs don’t vote. Remember nobody here at DL is “normal”. We notice, but we have already chosen our candidates and we’re not likely to be swayed by the sign battle. To the average voter they become anoying background noise real fast. The ego blight that they are subjected to every two years.
Another thing I learned in Advertising class. Billboards are hugely effective at directional advertising — think South of the Border signs along I-95 heading toward Florida — but they are a pretty poor use of funds for anything else. The message reaches tons of people who are not in your universe. And you pay for those impressions. It would be like a campaign sending mailers to ALL residents of Delaware, whether they can vote or not. Whether they are likely-voters or not. Whether they vote D or not. Whether they turn out for primaries or not. That’s a lot of money going into the trash.
Rebecca, how about mailers? Is the house call still the best way to get votes?
No one asked me but…I think it’s a synergy combining direct candidate contact, mailing, signs, contact from volunteers, etc.
It’s so difficult with so much ‘white noise’ out there. People are voluntarily and involuntarily bombarded with tens of thousands of messages each day. How do you break through?
The reason why I think it has to be a combination of things is that one message from one medium, regardless of which one, will never break through. Dozens of messages from the same medium will not effectively break through either, as anyone not paying attention to that particular medium will not hear the message.
Clearly, direct candidate contact is the most important at the local level, except when the candidate is someone who needs to hide from the public. And even there, it should be through a variety of contacts–face to face at the door; at large events, civic association meetings, candidates’ forums, phone calls, maybe even outside the grocery store.
I think signs ARE important. At the local level, they are most important when they’re on lawns. While signs don’t vote, homeowners do, and signs more or less directly reflect support from that individual homeowner. Think of it as a dog claiming it as its territory by peeing on the lawn. Or, better yet, don’t. Even ‘sign blight’ signs are important for building up name recognition.
Mailers, both positive and negative, are important. Positive pieces either build or reinforce positive name recognition, while negative pieces, usually relegated to post-Labor Day, except in the case of primaries, contrasts your opponent with you. ‘Negative’ does not have to mean dirty. Compare-and-contrast is an important part of any campaign.
The real trick is in figuring out how best to use your resources. For example, even though house calls are likely the most effective use of the candidate’s time (along with the need to raise $$’s), you need to know WHICH houses to hit. If you spend your time in an off-year election knocking on doors of people who don’t vote in off-year elections, you’re wasting your time. If you’re knocking on highly-partisan doors and you’re of the opposing party, you’re wasting your time.
You also need to use the feedback that you get from the doors to help shape and tweak your ongoing strategy.
Targeted lit drops are also very important. One thing that I liked to do was to do a lit drop in a certain neighborhood and then have the candidate knock door-to-door there soon thereafter. The association of the candidate with the lit had (I hope) a synergistic effect and made it more likely that the candidate could break through the ‘white noise’.
I think the biggest impact of signs is on the large bloc of voters who care enough to show up on election day, but only due to a sense of civic duty and/or to support one candidate they care about. Beyond that, they show up woefully unaware of what races will be on the ballot, let alone who the candidates are. If these voters have seen enough signs for any given name, they vote that way. I think it’s sad, but true.
Signs definitely don’t vote, but they are (sometimes) crucial signifiers of activist activity. Signs on DelDOT RoWs don’t mean much, but driving through a neighborhood with lots of candidate signs on private lawns shows lots of individual support. Not necessarily votes, but does show that the candidate or surrogates have been out and have gotten the support of these owners to place a sign. When I lived in Baltimore, signs were fought over and where I live now a few of us went berserk after all of our Matt Denn signs disappeared to be replaced with Copeland signs. Now we are having issues with Bovell — who has placed lots of signs on the street without permission. Lots of signs *in a neighborhood* mean plenty of candidate (or surrogate) activity which may be a signal of momentum. Signs on the RoW don’t mean all that much — to me.
I agree that signs don’t necessarily equal support but one of the things a candidate needs to do is get some name recognition. This is one way to do it. I agree with ‘Bulo that it’s a combination that is best, with voter contact being the most important.
Signs on ROW DO mean something, IMHO. It means that the candidate has no lawns upon which to place them and no clue how to attract actual residents to take his/her signs.
It took me three tries to comprehend what Harry was complaining about, but I think I got it. The stuff in his lead about the websites and the next few paragraphs about party identification really confuses his message.
It’s a stretch, but he seems to be charging that Glen and Velda have illegally placed signs along parts of I-95. Harry says it’s illegal to stop along limited access highways (like I-95, 495 and Del. 1) so anyone who put the signs up broke the law.
If that’s the case, of course, there are a shitload more politicians who have signs up along Route 1 who are breaking the law, everyone from Bonini to COD to Carney. It might help Harry and Ron to both get out more.
He also made an error – Dan Rappa did not make a gubernatorial bid. He indeed ran for something in 1990, but it wasn’t governor – he was trying to primary Carper for Congress. Carper didn’t run for governor until 1992.
Rappa pulled his Crazy Eileen stunt twice – for Congress in 1990 and governor in 1992.
You are allowed to stop if it is an emergency. One could argue that the preventing one’s opponent from being elected constitutes an emergency.
The places I’ve seen the signs on I-95 – you could get to them by coming in from the back. So, really Themal’s worried about hypotheticals.
Yeah, but Themal referred to Rappa’s 1990 gubernatorial bid, which is an impossibility.
I’m pretty sure that the Rappa primaries of Carper came about as a result of Carper’s success in deposing Gene Reed, Sr. as NCCDem Chair.
Needless to say, the Reed partisans couldn’t even fill the backroom at the Coach House on Philly Pike, which is where they hung out.