Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Increase in ripped-off signs gauges raw election emotion
By Liz Oakes
Enquirer staff writer
Call it a sign of the times. With Ohio a battleground state in the increasingly contentious presidential race, Bush-Cheney and Kerry-Edwards signs have been disappearing around Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky like candy on Halloween.
While such shenanigans happen every election, police and party loyalists say they're surprised at the unusually high number this year.
Some people aren't amused.
"It's disturbing," says Tom McLean, 51, of College Hill in Hamilton County, who has lost four Bush signs in a month. The last one was ripped off the metal frame, wadded up and thrown in the bushes, he said.
Six of his neighbors have lost Democratic or Republican placards, and one Belmont Avenue resident had yellow "X"s spray-painted across his Kerry signs.
In Clermont County, Loreda Braden, a Democrat, says: "This is the worst campaign for thievery and back-stabbing since I couldn't tell you when." Braden, 59, says she's planted campaign signs in her Batavia yard for a decade and never had a problem.
After their third Kerry-Edwards sign was stolen recently, Braden took action.
She and her husband, Orlando, nailed the latest one high on a tree.
"That's the only place we could put it so it wouldn't get stolen," she says. "The other one we take in at night."
No one in either party keeps a tally, but phones at Ohio Republican Party headquarters downtown have been ringing frequently over the last few weeks with stolen-sign complaints, said Bush-Cheney campaign volunteer Claire Oliver.
"It's really rampant," Oliver, 37, said. "It seems to be pretty much across the city."
Oliver estimates that about one in eight calls to Cincinnati's Bush-Cheney headquarters have been about sign thefts.
Local Kerry-Edwards campaign activists have similar accounts, and officials for both campaigns' Ohio headquarters say the problem is across the state.
Northern Kentucky campaign officials say they're having problems, too.
"Most of the people visiting here are replacing signs that have been stolen," says Ryan Donaghy, a Kerry-Edwards volunteer in Covington. She says 25 people came in Saturday to replace signs taken in Fort Thomas alone.
In Kenton County, "We've never seen anything like this. I've had three (signs) taken off my front yard already," says Ted Smith, a Republican Party executive committee member who lives in Park Hills.
A local political expert points to the grass-roots involvement and intensity of this neck-and-neck national campaign during a time of war.
"You get more people out there, they're going to feel more passionately. They drive by, they see a sign, they're going to pull it up," says Gene Beaupre, who teaches political science at Xavier University.
A number of those who've lost their signs feel just as strongly, saying that only makes them more determined to replace them.
![[img]](sign.jpg)
Tom McLean with his Bush/Cheney yard sign, which he found wadded up in his front bushes.
(Enquirer photo/GLENN HARTONG)
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"We've just decided we'll keep putting them back. If they think we're going to stop, they're wrong," says McLean.
On Sunday, Colerain Township police arrested two men after a Springdale Road resident called about 9:45 p.m. to report someone uprooting a 4-by-8-foot Bush sign in his yard.
Nicholas Metz, 25, of Price Hill and Dane Verstrat, 24, of Colerain Township are charged with criminal damaging, which carries a penalty of up to 90 days in jail and a $750 fine.
In his 27 years on the force, "I've seen all kinds of signs go down, even for the levies. Most of the time, it tends to be kids out vandalizing," says Colerain Township Officer Andrew Demeropolis. "You don't have adults going out and doing this without being motivated."
"I think there are zealots, frankly, on both sides," says Alex Triantafilou, vice chairman of the Bush-Cheney Hamilton County campaign, adding: "We just can't seem to keep a sign up, especially in Oakley and Madeira."
Where to get signs
