Soccer Dad: Give me some kind of sign

October 23, 2006

Give me some kind of sign

The Baltimore Sun has a nice profile of Patrick O'Brien, "Sign Boy" for the Ehrlich campaign.

"Sign Boy" is on a roll. He's put up three huge "Ehrlich/Cox" signs before lunch, and they're beauties. One of them is on top of a hill outside a Wendy's in Prince George's County, its deep blue foamboard contrasting sharply with the green grass and shrubbery.
"We have a nickname for them - face-punchers - when they just overwhelm someone's view," says Sign Boy, aka Patrick O'Brien, a lanky 22- year-old Lutherville native who roams the state listening to C-SPAN radio and planting the Ehrlich flag on as many lawns and roadsides as daylight allows. "You go over the hill and - bam! - it hits you."

This year's race for governor has seen a proliferation of the 4-by-8-foot signs. The Ehrlich campaign alone has put up more than 3,000 of the oversized signs - compared with just 1,000 in 2002. Add in the other candidates' signs and an unusual number of competitive races, and the state begins to look like a used car lot on the Fourth of July.

Two years ago, one of my less enlightened predictions was that the President may be competitive with Sen. Kerry based on the number of lawn signs I'd seen. It seems that I was overestimating the President's strength based mostly on my own neighborhood.

Going into the gubernatorial election, Ehrlich seems a lot stronger in my part of town. Even on my commute - to the border of PG and Montgomery counties - I'd hardly say that I'm overwhelmed by O'Malley/Brown signs. I'd conclude, based on lawn signs, alone that Governor Ehrlich is doing well in his bid for re-election.

But I know I can't depend on what I see. I'm guessing that my routes take me through the redder sections of the state. So was thinking, maybe we could make this a a Maryland Blogger Alliance project.

If you're a Maryland Blogger (even if you're not a member of the alliance) would you consider paying attention on your commute one day and counting the number of lawn signs you see for each gubernatorial candidate. Maybe with our different home bases we'll be able to get a reasonable sample.

I say lawn signs because as the "Sign Boy" article points out, each candidate has about 3000 of the big signs. Those won't tell us anything. Also I'd only be inclined to check lawn signs, not business signs. And if someone has 2 Ehrlichs or someone else has 3 O'Malleys I'd only count it as a single sign.

I'm wondering if sign counting might do a better job of sampling the vote than whatever Rasmussen, Zogby and Survey's USA are doing. Do I have anyone on board?

There's a certain irony in this.

Sign Boy likes a big sign. Even though he is a Republican, O'Brien was most impressed this year by a sign he saw along the Baltimore Beltway for Jim Smith, the Democratic Baltimore County executive. It was about 16 feet by 16 feet.

"I thought it was the greatest achievement in sign history," says O'Brien, whose sense of humor is drier than Death Valley in July. "I was like, tip of the cap to you, sir."

The irony is that Baltimore County is very strict about the size of lawn signs in front of private residences. Someone in our neighborhood had one of those 8' x 4' Ehrlich signs. Eventually it disappeared and was replaced by 10 to 15 regular signs. It seemed like it had gone to seed and little signs sprouted up in its place.

When I mentioned this to someone else, he said that the fellow had been threatened with a $6000 fine so he replaced the big sign with all the little ones. Anyway he had since taken down all but two of the signs. So I knocked on his door and asked him for a sign that was not being displayed. He said sure. So now I have my lawn sign.

A number of large Ehrlich signs have been taken down in our neighborhood. I guess that the County is taking its code seriously. I just wonder if they're as scrupulous about O'Malley signs.

(The bigger problem with Smith signs is that they are orange and they contrast - badly - with the bright green signs of his ally O'Malley. Anyone with both signs in his yard should be visited by the taste police. Orange and bright green. Yechh!)

Technorati tags: Maryland Bloggers Alliance, Maryland Politics, Bob Ehrlich, Martin O'Malley, Lawn Signs, Political Signs.