3 min read

David E. Stein lives in Oquossoc.

In his limerick “Song of the Open Road,” the poet Ogden Nash wrote:

I think that I shall never see
A billboard as lovely as a tree.

What is true for billboards is also true for political yard signs. Not only do they litter the landscape, they divide neighbors.

Unlike good fences, which make good neighbors, yard signs pit good neighbors against one another over the contentious issues of our day.

Where neighbors once chatted over fences, yard signs block discussion and escalate tensions. Like the fence between the United States and Mexico, political yard signs create an antagonistic, divisive, difficult-to-cross barrier. Simply stated, they are stakes in the ground signaling firm political differences.

With signs vying for position and dominance, lawns become battlefields.

A few yard signs, like the early signs of cancer, may go unnoticed. But, in no time, they metastasize with red and white blood cells facing off in pitched battles. When yard signs metastasize, they rally red and blue political cells into open internecine battle.

Unlike most sports, where showing one’s allegiance on a sign, cap or jersey is done in spirited, good fun, politics is a blood sport. Flexing yard signs is tantamount to “putting up your dukes.”

Slogans are battle cries. They provoke. They attack. They push the opposition into corners. Both sides inevitably come way bruised. It often takes months to heal and sometimes never fully.

For more than a century in this country we have voted in secret. The right to a secret ballot is protected in all 50 states. We vote in a walled-off booth or at our kitchen table where no one else sees our checked boxes. In contrast, yard signs convert our sacred, sovereign act into a loud, colorful and very public proclamation.

Voter research on the efficacy of yard signs is thin and mostly shows them to be only marginally effective. Direct personal contact, especially door-to-door and public forums, targeted, digital messaging, direct mail, volunteer recruitment, broadcast television and voter turnout all produce greater returns on the investment.

Imagine for a moment that political yard signs were eliminated from the marketing mix for all political campaigns. The money saved could be redeployed in more effective ways to touch and inform the citizenry.

Product marketing, regardless of whether the product is a political candidate or soap, changes depending on market conditions and regulations. When it became irrefutable in 1971 that cigarettes were a cause of cancer, cigarette advertising was banned from television and radio. Other media and marketing strategies replaced them.

Yard signs may not be carcinogenic, but they are toxic. And though science cannot yet prove their level of toxicity, it is palpably harmful in all our communities. It will take grassroots efforts, political will and legislation to remove yard signs from our lawns.

Doing so may mend fences, clear the air, improve the political climate and perhaps save a few trees. In the Pine Tree State, these would be welcome changes.

With inspiration from Ogden Nash:

I think that I shall never see
A yard sign as peaceable a tree.