How to enhance your street-corner campaigning

Three ways to tell it’s late October in Spokane without looking at the calendar: Leaves are turning colors, carved pumpkins are on front porches and candidates are doing stupid things with campaign signs on street corners.

Don’t get me wrong. A campaign sign is a form of political speech, which is among the freest speech in the land. If candidates or their supporters, or people who feel strongly for or against some ballot issue, want to exercise that right by standing on a corner with their speech on a stick, they should have at it.

This has been a tradition in Spokane for decades. Some people credit (blame might be a better word) former county Commissioner Steve Hasson with pioneering the tactic in his 1986 campaign. But it goes back at least to Skip Chilberg, who used it in his 1982 campaign for county treasurer. And it probably goes back further, although there’s no truth to the theory that Teddy Roosevelt was talking about waving signs on the street corner when he said “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” After all, TR was just quoting an African parable and yard signs were not then in vogue among candidates in Africa.

But we digress.

Over the years, it has become an article of faith among campaign managers and candidates that one must stand on street corners and wave signs at passing motorists. Even if one thought it a specious way of upping one’s vote count – Do many voters decide who’d be a better council member based on which candidate has the most sign-carrying supporters in a.m. drive time? And if they do, are they really the people we want choosing our leaders? – it used to be confined primarily to a day or two before Election Day.

But with the all-mail ballot system, we no longer have an Election Day. We have an Election Fortnight-and-a-half, which seems to obligate candidates and ballot measurists to spend mornings and evenings in sign-waving frenzies at anything on wheels.

So wave as much as you like, but here are some tips for impressing those few voters who might mark a ballot for you just because they pass on the street and don’t toss their half-finished latte at you.

•Don’t flood the zone. One person with one sign is enough at most intersections, but if you crave company, have one for the east-west lanes and one for the north-souths. One morning last week, a candidate who shall remain nameless had at least nine supporters spread across the corners and dividers of a South Hill intersection. Some were waving signs, some were leaning on them, some were talking, some were drinking coffee. It was the campaign equivalent of a public works project where one guy is digging and four guys are standing around telling him how to dig.

•Know your corners. Most corners are just corners, but others are places where stuff happens that isn’t conducive to campaigning. For example, the corner of Fifth Avenue and Walnut Street, where candidates have been congregating lately, is often a location where panhandlers regularly stand with hand-scribbled “Homeless. Anything Helps. God Bless” messages on cardboard. Candidates standing there evoke the image of begging for votes.

•Don’t be a traffic hazard. Opponents of a statewide ballot measure were congregated on a downtown corner with traffic lights during the evening drive one night last week, and had such a cluster close to the curb it was difficult for drivers to see around them. That meant drivers stopped at the light would sometimes make a left turn into oncoming traffic because they couldn’t see around the signs.

•Don’t stand out in a downpour. Makes people think a candidate or his supporters don’t have the sense to come in out of the rain.