I have just seen the very first campaign sign on the lawn of a house in my neighborhood. It’s right across the street from me on the lawn of a Chicago Irishman from a large family. They have always been dependable Democrats and in previous elections we could expect to see campaign signs for nearly every regular Democratic candidate.
The sign reads “Pollak for Congress”. No party affiliation is mentioned. A little digging showed me that Joel Pollak is the Republican candidate for the Illinois 9th Congressional District. If Mike Quigley, the Democratic incumbent, doesn’t get my neighbor’s support, Democrats are in real trouble in this election.
It’s little things like that which can sometimes tell you more about how an election will go than polling, donations, and all that other “big news”
A friend in the Boston area tells me that there are more signs for Republicans in Barney Frank’s district than she’s ever seen before. I still doubt that Frank will lose but he’s clearly more concerned about re-election than he has been in quite some time.
In my regular morning walks with the dogs around the neighborhood (about 3 miles) I saw a total of 9 campaign signs, remarkably few for this point, much fewer than I ever remember having seen at this stage.
5 Giannoulias signs (2 in the same yard), 3 Kirk signs, and 1 Pollak sign.
Huh. In my neighborhood the signs are overwhelmingly Brady, Kirk etc…….
Oh, wait, I’m in DuPage County……..
Gee, and I thought the Pollaks have been running Chicago for years!