By Kathy Hughes
Contributing Writer
For most of you, the local elections are over — however, for me, as I write this, there’s another week to go before I can say, “thank goodness, it’s over!”
I am almost always relieved to see the campaigns end. This year, it wasn’t the hammering campaign ads on TV, but the roadside visual pollution, especially in DeWitt, that proved so annoying. What is the matter with candidates who so desperately want to be elected, that they find it necessary to begin weeks in advance with plastering their names along every thoroughfare?
What has always bothered me about campaign signage in New York is that party affiliations are never specified. Perhaps, party designation isn’t permitted, I don’t know, but viewing the endless series of signs as I drive about my business, does nothing for maintaining my zone of mindfulness. Not only are the signs intrusive, but they also are boring and repetitive. One lawn along Woodchuck Hill Road had six signs, all for the same person. What’s the purpose of that?
Talk about distracted driving, just seeing signs even from a distance, gets me so worked up from perceived aggression, that by the time Election Day comes around, I begin to suffer from physical stress. Is this really necessary? Other democracies, France and the UK in particular, limit the active campaign period to one or two weeks before the designated voting day. What a relief that would be!
Unknown to the political parties, I am a contrarian — the more phone calls, TV ads and campaign billboards I am subjected to, the less likely I am to vote for the offensive party. Are there other people like me? This year has been especially bad, and I have discerned that all the signs with the same layout, the same colors, in the same typeface represent one particular party. For whatever reason the more other parties show restraint by comparison, the more they earn my gratitude and my vote.
The extreme repetitive sameness is so uncreative, so boring that it indicates to me that these individuals are piteously deficient in imagination; the sheer aggressiveness on their part suggests that the power that comes with elective office is satisfying a driving need for dominance. I, for one, am more swayed by imagination and humor, such as the Burma Shave signs that were usually good for a chuckle.
When I run for high office, my signs will appear in a sequence of three to five signs reading, “Confused by government chaos?,” “Kathy Hughes has the clues,” “Plus, thinking outside the box 4. Vote, November 7!” Fortunately, that day will never come.
