Yard Signs

October 12, 2012 - byCarter Wrenn
Candidates run for office for all kinds of reasons: Foibles. Vanity.  A desire to serve.
 
But, whatever their reasons, after they announce they run head-on into an unpleasant fact: Running or office (even a local office like County Commissioner) costs a lot of money and raising money is plain old-fashioned hard work. It has none of the vicarious pleasures, say, of giving speeches.
 
And that’s where yard signs come in.
 
Because when a candidate decides to ignore the grind of raising money – he still wants to have a campaign. So he figures, When people see my yard signs they’ll see I have a lot of support and it’ll snowball into a bandwagon to elect me. Then he’ll spend a few hundred dollars and he’s on his way to victory.  

Of course, it doesn’t work like that. If it did Obama and Romney would be spending $50 million (in North Carolina) on yard signs and we’d be buried beneath mountains of cardboard rather than TV ads.

There’re a couple of problems with yard signs. First, they don’t say much – there’s not much message. They don’t tell where a candidate stands. Second, as they’re driving down the road most people don’t study yard signs – they don’t pick one sign out of a cluster by an intersection and think, Wow, that’s a great sign! I have got to vote for that fellow on Election Day.  

That said, there is a certain amount of glory in a yard sign – if you’re a candidate it makes driving down the road a pleasure.
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Yard Signs

October 12, 2012/Carter Wrenn
Candidates run for office for all kinds of reasons: Foibles. Vanity.  A desire to serve.
 
But, whatever their reasons, after they announce they run head-on into an unpleasant fact: Running or office (even a local office like County Commissioner) costs a lot of money and raising money is plain old-fashioned hard work. It has none of the vicarious pleasures, say, of giving speeches.
 
And that’s where yard signs come in.
 
Because when a candidate decides to ignore the grind of raising money – he still wants to have a campaign. So he figures, When people see my yard signs they’ll see I have a lot of support and it’ll snowball into a bandwagon to elect me. Then he’ll spend a few hundred dollars and he’s on his way to victory.  

Of course, it doesn’t work like that. If it did Obama and Romney would be spending $50 million (in North Carolina) on yard signs and we’d be buried beneath mountains of cardboard rather than TV ads.

There’re a couple of problems with yard signs. First, they don’t say much – there’s not much message. They don’t tell where a candidate stands. Second, as they’re driving down the road most people don’t study yard signs – they don’t pick one sign out of a cluster by an intersection and think, Wow, that’s a great sign! I have got to vote for that fellow on Election Day.  

That said, there is a certain amount of glory in a yard sign – if you’re a candidate it makes driving down the road a pleasure.
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Carter Wrenn

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