Yet many of the consultants who run campaigns see them as a waste of money. Democratic consultant Judy Stern of Fort Lauderdale thinks signs are wonderful -- for candidates her clients are running against.
``I love watching people waste their money on signs. It's great. Keep spending your money that way. What do you learn from a sign? What does a sign tell you?'' Stern said. ``Signs don't vote.''
Republican consultant Rick Asnani of West Palm Beach agrees.
``Signs don't help you win. They're a waste,'' he said. ``You can spend your money doing a lot more productive things. Do you need signs to win a campaign? The answer is no.''
Most political consultants said it's much better to put money into targeted direct mailers, cable television ads or canvassing door to door.
`BUSIER THAN EVER'
Still, business is good at American Political Signs in Hollywood.
``This year I'm busier than ever,'' said Charles Stuart, who has been working in the family business for 18 years. The Internet has taken ``a little business away,'' he said, but campaigns still buy signs.
They proliferate because candidates and their supporters expect them -- and complain when they aren't available.
``We often buy a lot of signs because we get people saying, `Hey, I haven't seen your signs out there.' Our supporters really want that kind of visibility,'' said political consultant Brian Franklin of Weston. ``Candidates want to do it because people ask them where their signs are.''
Asnani said candidates and their supporters often are obsessed with signs. ``You don't need them but every single candidate gets them. There's a psychological battle we fight,'' he said. Ultimately, his objective is to ``try to minimize the damage of how much they're going to spend.''
The ubiquitous little signs on metal frames cost $2 to $4 each. An order of 500 can hit $2,000.
Besides draining a campaign's bank account, West Palm Beach-based Democratic consultant Richard Giorgio said signs are often a headache.
``Sign wars are just never-ending problems in political campaigns,'' he said. ``They're expensive. And they get swiped.''
Sometimes, Giorgio said, they're taken by people who want the little metal frames.
THEFT
Often it's political mischief. Just as inevitable as signs are the complaints from candidates that evil supporters of the opposition are stealing their signs. And just as frequently the other side says its signs are being stolen, too.
The thieves rarely get caught. One juicy exception was a few weeks before the 2002 election when a Hernando County sheriff's deputy stopped a pickup truck one night shortly after midnight and found, according to The St. Petersburg Times, a hammer, two pairs of gloves, and four Karen Thurman for Congress signs.
One of the men in the truck was Harvey Waite -- the husband of Ginny Brown-Waite, the Republican who went on to defeat Thurman in that election.
Robin Rorapaugh, a Hollywood political consultant, especially dislikes one related form of political advertising: billboards. Rorapaugh said only two ever make sense: ``A billboard in front of your opponent's house to make your opponent crazy, and a billboard in front of your candidate's house to make your candidate happy.''
Otherwise, she's not as anti-sign as many of her fellow consultants.
``Signs in a local race can be good in that it cues your neighbor who to vote for in races that get very little press coverage,'' she said. ``A sign that's not in a yard is a waste of money. A sign that's in a yard, that's a vote-getter.''
Kevin Hill, a political scientist at Florida International University, said signs can provide a marginal benefit in some contests.
In a race in which people know little or nothing about the candidates, such as a judicial election, a few voters might be influenced by remembering the last name they see before voting -- and in a low-turnout election a handful of votes can make the difference between victory and defeat.
NAME RECOGNITION
Stuart, the printer, said signs help candidates build name recognition. Franklin said that's a common belief that convinces many candidates to demand signs because they think name recognition will translate into votes. He thinks it makes more sense to invest in advertising that conveys a message that can't be delivered by a sign.
Yet they remain integral parts of campaigns.
``Elections are like circuses, and the signs are like the balloons,'' Franklin said. ``They're not the main act.''
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