Family politics and knee-jerk signage

I noticed something this morning driving through Spokane. Campaign signs litter roadways. Some are neatly spaced on front lawns, many explode organically from city-owned land, multiplying exponentially*. I'd forgotten just how hyped people around here get.

It's strange to see people taking sides when the most common political conversation I usually get involved in is this:

Grandpa: Hate them lyin' sons've'bitches
Me: Yep, they lie alright.
Grandpa: Mhmm, they all lie. Every single one've'm
Me: Yep, sure do.
Grandpa: All've'm

I guess I should talk to someone besides grandpa about this, but all my friends are just a smidge right of rabid Marxism, so I know they're not representative of a region I consider a trans-mountain extention of the Bible Belt either.

Then again, maybe they are.

I've seen a disproportionately large number of Kerry/Edwards signs. They're around 7 or 8 to 1 over Bush/Cheney signs. Even in rural Elk, home of my parents, I see many more Kerry signs. Have our farmers and Walmart greeters gone crazy? Maybe, but I doubt it.

In a region where ultra-conservative George Nethercutt was a good ideological fit and an absurdly popular Congressman, I just think everyone assumes that everyone else is voting Bush. After all, campaign signs are meant as arguments from common consent. So, if everyone agrees, why risk tearing up your sod?

Besides, if Spokane isn't voting Bush, I don't know where his 40+ percent in Washington is coming from. Yakima maybe, or the outskirts of Tacoma . . .

I'm pretty convinced that those Kerry/Edwards signs are the voice of dissent, not the majority. I'm sure they also serve as markers for Aryan Nations brick-throwing contests and cross-illumination relays as they wind their way into town.

Oh, I left this out: All those Kerry signs in Elk have been tagged or otherwise defaced. Dark country roads, idle hands.

But even this degree of liberal sentiment is surprising, I'd always thought Spokane was far more conservative.

I thank my family for that. Until I developed a political conscience of my own, I didn't realize just how right wing my [mom's] family is. I remember my uncle wringing his hands a few years ago about voting for a very good friend of his who was a very moderate [non-segregationist Zell Miller type] Democrat. We want free enterprise and small government. Taxation is robbery etc, etc. That's us.

And we start 'em young. Eight-year-old cousin Stanley, freshly adopted from the wretched streets of Port au Prince to a better life with a loving family and three squares daily, is now the token black child in a George Nethercutt attack ad*. For years my grandpa was the lone dissenter, a Roosevelt Democrat through and through. That is, until those Swift Boat Ads came out. Now he's the most fervent and irrational Bush supporter the Renz clan has.

Those weren't polemics, I don't think supporting Bush is irrational in itself. He's irrational. Bat shit crazy, I think, is the term. I overheard him say, "Kerry thinks he's Jesus Goddamn Christ. Thinks he's gonna make the cripples walk." Fanatical. I'm going to devote a whole post to this I think..

Back to the original subject--I noticed something interesting this morning, remember? Come on, focus.

Driving at this time of a four year cycle is like sledding through a three-color kaleidoscope. Almost all of the thousands of campaign signs are variations on that austere red, white and blue theme. This morning though, despite the epilepsy-inducing homogeneity, one yard stuck out. It too was festooned to overflowing with tri-colored signs, but something was different. One sign said Bush/Cheney. Another was for a local race. It advocated Laurie Dolan. She's a Democrat.

People vote independent all the time, I know. I've done it myself the one time I voted. Today was the first day, though, I'd ever seen a non-partisan lawn. I'll have to keep my eyes out, but I'm pretty sure every lawn I've seen before and after the Bush/Dolan lawn was uniformly Republican or Democrat.

So it's [is it?] overwhelmingly party-line clingers that put signs in their yards--knee jerkers. Why is this? What do you guys think? Is it just this area, or is there something about partisanism in general that makes people want to transform the solemn duty of electing our officials into a pep rally?

Your words. Here. Now.

*Why you're allowed to put signs on public land is puzzling to me.
*Incidentally, it turns out Nethercutt is pro stem cell research--but only for diabetes treatments. His daughter, in a campaign ad, proudly announces she has diabetes. Nothing like Kin Altruism.