Politics & Neighbors

A good old political statement out by the road.

Perhaps it's different around here than in the rest of the country, but here in the swing state of Ohio, politics between neighbors is starting to get ugly.

I googled the Cincinnati Enquirer's website in search of a story I wanted to share about a couple in another Cincinnati community. He's a Republican; she's a Democrat, and they both put yard signs in their front yard, side-by-side. Then they took their dog for a walk and came back to find that her Obama sign had been stolen. The husband was outraged on his wife's behalf.

That was the story I was going to share, but when I did a search on the newspaper's site, dozens of other stories popped up. Apparently sign-stealing this election is widespread and big news. Some of the offenders have been caught with hundreds of signs that they've removed from people's yards. Across the border in Kentucky, it's local election signs that have been removed almost as soon as they're put up.

Politics are creating some pretty bad neighbors among us.

My mother's neighbors, who are the kindest, sweetest, most neighborly people in the world, have suddenly turned on her. These are people who come over and  let her dogs out when she's gone for long, who feed her horses, who help shovel snow off her porch and who she exchanges Christmas gifts with. But now, they're barely speaking to her since they disagree on politics. And instead of putting out yard signs, they've placed an empty chair in their yard expressing their support of Romney, Clint Eastwood-style.

At our house, our Obama sign lasted less than 24 hours. We put it in our yard, went to bed, and woke up to find it missing. There's no trace of it, and few other Obama signs remaining in the neighborhood. We suspect our neighbor -- the same man who brings us vegetables from his garden in the summer. His daughter even told us it might be him.

All we can do is shake our heads. Stealing our yard sign isn't going to change our vote, but we may think a little harder about the cliched saying that 'fences make the best neighbors.'