One of the annual occurrences that accompanies political campaigns – and perhaps one that goes unnoticed by many – is the sign war.  Each sign picks its critical spots, stakes a claim, and then waits to see if the sign will hold the position.  The enemy troopers wage sneak attacks to retake the positions, and sometimes to reassert their dominance with their own sign.  The sign wars of 2008, though, seem to be much more fierce than they have been in the past, as stories circulate of whole towns being scrubbed clean or DOT employees swiping signs from front lawns.  Some dispatches from the front lines:

MADISON: The above picture is from Madison, where the fight has grown so tough that up to 90% of the McCain signs being placed in town are reported missing less than 24 hours after placement.  Many residents have turned their anger to energy – volunteering their time for the McCain/Palin ticket and rallying fellow neighbors to the cause.  The signs are being replaced this week. 

THOMASTON: The McCain supporters in Thomaston are telling a similar story, with the RTC Chair reporting last Friday that literally every McCain sign in town was “disappeared” by unknown local Democrats.  RTC Chairman George Seabourne noted that subsequent to the raid and its exposure in the newspaper, people have been calling for McCain signs almost non-stop.

OLD LYME & MILFORD: We’ve also gotten word from several people who have discovered their signs burned, which is distressing.  A woman from Old Lyme and a man from Milford passed along separate incidents about this activity.  Not only is it likely that the individual will probably burn themselves, a blow torch could easily become a very brutal weapon if a confrontation was to occur.

BRIDGEWATER: A couple in Bridgewater radioed in with a really troubling story.  While mowing the lawn, the gentleman noticed that a Connecticut Department of Transportation truck coming up his street and stopping periodically.  When the truck arrived at his yard, a worker jumped out, grabbed up his McCain lawn sign, tossed it in the back of the truck, and started to leave.  The man stopped the sign thief and asked what the problem was.  The state employee indicated that the sign was too close to the road, to which the gentleman replied that there were at least two Obama signs a similar distance from the street that had not been taken.  The worker jumped in the truck and took off with the signs.

The gentleman, who was shaken but undeterred, got in his car and followed the truck back to the DOT station.  He went to the front desk and demanded the return of his sign, which did finally occur several minutes later.

Competing over sign displays does accompany the political season, and in the supercharged environment of a Presidential campaign it shouldn’t be a huge surprise to see some sign wars.  The police can do very, very little to stop them unless they are lucky enough to catch someone in the act, so it falls to regular people to police themselves.  Hopefully these political battles will pass without any real casualties.