A new weapon in the war for yard sign supremacy

One McCain supporter had a novel idea for how to prevent the traditional theft of campaign signs -- he electrified his.

Published October 31, 2008 12:55AM (EDT)

There is something about a yard sign that's more fundamental than a bumper sticker, more definitive than a pin, even more tangible than a t-shirt. A yard sign says “I claim this ground for my chosen candidates.”

There's just one problem: Yard signs are really easy to steal.

And, like every year around this time, they are being stolen. Just last week 40 McCain-Palin signs were stolen from yards  in Cass County, Michigan, while 50 Obama-Biden signs were stolen in Madison County, Tennessee.

For months, this cold war of signs has raged across the nation, but now it seems to be getting dangerous. Early Thursday, a young Democrat attempting to replace a McCain-Palin sign in Shawn Turschak’s yard in Chapel Hill, North Carolina with one supporting Barack Obama met with a nasty shock.  Turschak, the victim of one too many previous thefts, had electrified his sign using the wires from his dog’s invisible fence. The incident was caught on tape, which you can see below.


By Andrew Burmon

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