Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Spin Control

It’s Halloween. Take your signs down

It's Halloween, which is great for the candy manufacturers, fun for the kids, but often terrible for campaign signs.

Those placards on a stick are among the easiest targets for Halloween mischief. Mustaches and devils horns get spray-painted onto candidate faces, obscenities get scrawled on issue signs and some just flat disappear, never to be seen again.

While it may infringe slightly on your First Amendment rights of political speech, it might be wise to uproot your signs and store them in a garage, basement or backyard until Thursday.

If you're reading this in the morning, go do it NOW. Don't think you'll remember when you come home from work, because there's a chance you won't. If you're reading it at work, call home and have your spouse, significant other or responsible offspring do it.

If you don’t, and something happens to them, don’t call the newspaper to report some deep plot by the opposing candidate or issue campaign to steal your sign.



Jim Camden
Jim Camden joined The Spokesman-Review in 1981 and retired in 2021. He is currently the political and state government correspondent covering Washington state.

Follow Jim online: