ELECTIONS : On Eve of Voting, Signs Are Still the Name of the Game

In one of his first moves this year as a candidate for Congress, John Barbieri posted huge fluorescent orange and blue signs along some of the most heavily traveled roads in the South Bay and Westside.

Seven feet wide and four feet tall, they dwarf the posters of other candidates. Jokingly, Barbieri, a San Pedro Republican, says: “We needed to heighten our name recognition.”

In an era of targeted mail and media buys, campaign posters would seem an obsolete way to reach voters. But they clearly have a niche, as countless South Bay fences, lampposts and front yards attest.

With municipal elections scheduled for Tuesday and congressional and state legislative primaries set for June 2, the area is festooned with signs ranging from silk-screened poster board to spray-painted wood.

Though signs are a crude, in-your-face form of political advertising, experts say they serve an important purpose: Quickly and cheaply, they help candidates get their foot in the door.

“Name recognition is really the name of the game and until you have it, you don’t even get to talk about the issues,” says David Stewart, a professor of marketing at the USC School of Business. “Signs help make you salient enough for voters that they are willing to give you some consideration.”

Such efforts are particularly important this year, thanks to a diversity of local contests and to reapportionment, the once-a-decade redrawing of legislative boundaries at the county, state and congressional levels.

The result is a large number of competitive races--and a potpourri of outdoor posters.

At one extreme are homemade models. In Gardena, for instance, City Council candidate Steven Bradford has resorted to plywood and paint.

“Steven is not an entrenched incumbent, so he doesn’t have access to donations from companies that do business with the city,” says Martin Ludlow, Bradford’s campaign manager. “Our signs are made by volunteers.”

At the other extreme are slick and extensive sign campaigns such as those by Torrance attorney William Beverly, a candidate for Congress, and Redondo Beach City Councilwoman Barbara Doerr, a candidate for state Assembly.

Often featuring eye-catching color combinations of silk-screened Day-Glo and blue, these efforts are usually conducted by companies that design, produce, post and remove the signs for a flat fee.

Experts say a “heavy” sign drive in a typical South Bay Assembly district would involve 1,250 double-sided color signs and cost about $7,000. That compares to more than $20,000 for a single, 50,000-piece mailing to an Assembly district’s high-propensity Republican or Democratic voters.

Sign vendors say they can guarantee voters will get massive exposure to a candidate’s name.

“You can send me a piece of mail, but I might not read it, and if you’re on TV, I can just hit the mute button,” says Greg Hummel of Candidate Outdoor Graphics Service, a Covina company that has posted many of the political signs in the South Bay. “With us, everywhere you turn you can’t help but see our signs. We try to make it so you can’t look the other way.”

That approach, however, can be counterproductive, a point underscored by the number of local ordinances barring campaign signs from public property or from private property when the owner has not given permission.

Some cities are tougher than others. The Rolling Hills homeowners’ association prohibits all outdoor signs--even “for sale” notices outside homes. But few expect the staid Palos Verdes Peninsula to take kindly to outdoor advertising.

“Up on the hill? You don’t do it up there, and that’s all there is to it,” says Christopher Spanos of Glendale, owner of an outdoor sign service called Coast to Coast. The idea is to get the candidate’s name around, he said, not make people angry.

Candidates’ advertisements in the South Bay generally follow what one sign maker calls the “45 mile-an-hour rule”--designing the poster so it can be read easily from a car moving at a good clip.

That often means limiting text to a candidate’s name and the office being sought, leaving discussion of the issues to mailers, handouts or personal appearances.

Still, some of this year’s political signs emit a message as well as a name. A hotly contested vote on Lawndale’s general plan, for instance, has candidates for city office debating the issue in outdoor posters.

City Council candidate Steve Mino, argues against the plan with a sign saying, “Stop Eminent Domain,” and mayoral candidate Bill Johnson endorses the proposal in a poster that reads, “Stop shoddy development.”

Including a message can be risky. To portray himself as an effective incumbent, Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana posted signs saying: “Great Job, Deane Dana!”

Since some are posted on vacant lots with a weedy, trash-strewn look, the message can take an unintended negative turn. And to complicate matters, someone has affixed small stickers carrying the word “NOT” to Dana signs, borrowing a phrase from “Wayne’s World” comics Garth and Wayne.

Ron Smith, a campaign consultant for Dana, says the resulting attention has actually helped Dana by boosting his name identification.

Norman Amjadi, one of Dana’s opponents, disagrees.

“It has shown that the idea Deane Dana is doing a great job is just a figment of his imagination,” says Amjadi. In his own campaign signs, Amjadi delivers the message: “Let’s dump Dana.”

Ideally, candidates prefer to install lawn signs in the front yards of obliging supporters. The backdrop is better, and a lawn sign gives the impression that the candidate has grass-roots support.

Carson resident Bennett Brizuela’s yard, for instance, is a thicket of campaign signs for City Council candidates Ralph Quinte and Pete Fajardo and council incumbent Michael I. Mitoma.

Brizuela says he supports all three men but that his help carries a price: He wants a speed bump built on the heavily traveled street in front of his house. Says Brizuela: “We help them, they help us.”

Candidates running for such offices as Assembly, state Senate and Congress rarely limit their sign campaigns to the front yards of supporters. With huge geographical areas to cover, they also hire help to put signs in other places: fences on vacant lots, shopping center lampposts and more.

Though that can mean frenzied competition for space, candidates say that even in the age of direct mail and electronic media, it’s worth the effort.

Says Barbieri: “A lot of people I run into on my precinct walks say, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve seen your signs.’ For me, that makes it absolutely necessary.”