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Columbus Dispatch 2008: Obama signs are hot property

 

 

 

Obama signs are hot property

Supporters seethe as front yards from Clintonville to UA turn up empty

Saturday, September 20, 2008 3:12 AM

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Maybe Vaseline laced with hot-pepper juice?
That's the concoction Becky Armstrong of Upper Arlington is thinking of spreading on her Barack Obama campaign sign now that thieves have stolen five others from her yard.

Sometime after dark on Thursday, her sign and 13 others disappeared from Mountview Road. It's the second time such signs have been swiped en masse from the street.

Laura Schwartz, who distributes signs for Democratic Upper Arlington Progressive Action, said that more than 100 Obama-for-president signs have been stolen in the city. She's encouraging people to take their signs in at night and report stolen signs on the group's Web site.

"There was a rash of it last week, and it looks like a coordinated effort," she said.

The same problem cropped up in Upper Arlington four years ago, when John Kerry and George W. Bush signs disappeared close to the election. That same year, a Columbus lawyer admitted he'd told his 13-year-old daughter to take a Kerry sign from a Northwest Side yard.

Upper Arlington residents began reporting stolen Obama signs in late August, said Jackie Ackison of the police records division. No one has reported a stolen John McCain sign, she said.

Police in the suburb discourage residents from reporting the thefts.

"People get very upset that we don't make the stolen signs top priority, but we just can't," Ackison said. She said residents should put their name and address on signs so they can be returned if recovered. So far, none have been, she said.

Neither the Obama nor McCain campaign headquarters in Columbus would comment on yard-sign thefts.

Yard signs are stolen every year in Worthington, said police dispatcher Deb Hunter.

"It'll get hot and heavy soon. We go through this anytime there's an election," she said. Usually, signs from both presidential parties are targets, she said.

In Granville, only one sign -- for McCain -- has been reported stolen so far, police there said.

On Piedmont Road in Clintonville, the pilfering started about two weeks ago, when a handful of signs disappeared. One resident saw a man jump out of a black car, pull up Obama signs and drive off with them at 1:30 a.m.

"She yelled at him: 'I see you! I see you!' but I'm sure he couldn't hear her because his car was playing really loud music," said resident Mary Struble, whose sign was stolen that night. In addition, Struble's Obama bumper sticker was removed from her car.

She said no one has a clue who's stealing the signs but she doesn't think it's a teenage prank.

"If it wasn't political, you'd think someone would have found the signs somewhere," she said.

Bob Krasen of Blenheim Road in Clintonville has had three Obama signs filched. He added a cow bell to the third one as an alarm, but both the sign and the bell were taken. Now he has made a permanent sign and planted it in his yard.

This is the first time that Struble, who's 80, has had a political sign of any kind in her yard or on her car. She also has an Obama T-shirt, which she wears frequently.

So far, no one has tried to steal that.

kgray@dispatch.com

 

 

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