Signs don't vote

...But I still like to count the signs for candidates when I travel around Arkansas. I come from an area of the state where the worth of your candidacy is based to some on whose yards your signs are in. People here will tell you you're losing because your opponent's signs outnumber yours on a specific street 10-8. It wasn't until Mary Anne Salmon gave me a break and hired me for the Clinton/Gore '96 campaign did I realize that campaigns didn't revolve solely around signs and field work. On the Arkansas bus tour that year, I pointed out to Bill Paschall how many signs one particular candidate had, and he said "signs don't vote." Of course, he's of the thoery that a candidate should spend most of his/her money on radio, television or direct mail, but he's right.

Still, while it's no secret that Obama isn't going to win Polk and Scott counties, driving from Texarkana to Fayetteville yesterday, I only saw two clusters of Obama signs from the time I hit the Sevier County line until I got to Sebastian County. I say clusters because the people that had Obama signs in their yard didn't have just one. The entire perimeter of their property was fortified with signs from front to back as if to say "yeah, I'm for him -- what about it?" You have to admire that type -- they're exactly the people you want to enlist in your campaign. They're the ones that'll go directly to the supporters of your opponent and either try to talk them out of their support or, at the very least, neutralize them.

One final observation about yard signs and stickers: they can absolutely demoralize candidates. While riding in a parade one year, about 70% of the people in the crowd were wearing my opponent's sticker. Later that campaign, though, I spent most of one Saturday knocking on doors and putting signs out in the yards of his neighborhood and adjacent neighborhoods. I wondered what the expression on his face would be when he drove home that night -- probably the same as mine when I saw that crowd at the parade. On the other hand, when my uncle opposed Jim Gunter for prosecuting attorney down here, Gunter told someone that he thought he was going to "Tackett," not Nashville, because of all the Tackett signs he saw on the drive up to Howard County. Gunter won that race. My God I love campaign season.

Nothing beats retail politics and knocking on doors, but while signs don't vote, to a lot of Arkanans, they're the central part of local campaigns.