Talking politics from the grave

In Chicago, election day is known as “resurrection day.” In Las Vegas, the dead aren’t known to be nearly as active, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have an influence.

Ask Charlotte McCourt. Well, you can’t (without the use of a Ouija board, anyway).

McCourt, an 84-year-old grandmother, died this month. And she went out in a blaze of glory (if you’re a fan of GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle, that is).

She didn’t endorse Angle before she departed, but the writers of her obituary let it be known that she was no fan of Angle’s opponent, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

“We believe that Mom would say she was mortified to have taken a large role in the election of Harry Reid to U.S. Congress,” reads the obituary that appeared in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “Let the record show Charlotte was displeased with his work. Please, in lieu of flowers, vote for another more worthy candidate.”

Yikes! But things aren’t completely terrible for the senator. The latest Rasmussen poll shows him gaining a little ground.

Angle still leads by 46% to 43%, but that’s an improvement from last month, when she had a 48% to 41% lead.

By the way, the old political play on words that an election is about the “evil of two lessers” appears to be accurate in Nevada.

Nobody seems to like either candidate — at all.

A full 48% of voters polled view Reid “very unfavorably,” and 39% hold Angle in that same miserable regard.

Stimulus dollars pay for stimulus ads

You may have noticed signs like these in your community. Alongside the silhouette of a worker wielding a shovel are these words:

“Putting America to Work. Project Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act”

Since his impossible schedule prohibits Vice President Joe Biden from making it around to every stimulus spending project across the country, the government has come up with the idea of posting project signs to show your $787 billion of hard-earned future tax money at work.

Even if you are no longer at work because the national unemployment rate that was supposed to be capped at 8% by the spending is now 9.5% (higher west of the Mississippi).

The signs are an idea used widely across the country but perfected in Chicago Democratic politics, where everything good carries the name of the current mayor (but none near the unemployment offices or where traffic jams might occur).

Not that any of the bright orange and green signs are intended to remind potential voters which elected public officials should be remembered as taking care of things come election time.

ABC News got a clever idea and looked into how much was being spent on signs advertising money being spent to stimulate the economy. ABC’s Gregory Simmons and Jonathan Karl found about $20 million — as in, $20,000,000 — had gone so far for signs advertising spending.

Illinois alone has spent $650,000 on stationary stimulus signs; Pennsylvania, another state with a fellow Democrat as chief executive, spent $157,000. Virginia, which has a Republican governor, allows no such signage.

The reporters found one sign outside Washington on the road to Dulles International Airport that cost $10,000 to make and erect. It advertises a runway improvement that created all of 17 temporary construction jobs.

California Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) wants an investigation into “overtly political guidance on stimulus advertising,” including one regulation ordering “Barack Obama, President” on some signs involving Native American programs.

Another Republican, Rep. Aaron Schock of Illinois, launched an equally hopeless legislative bid to ban stimulus spending on stimulus signs. “I think,” he said, “it’s a bit of an oxymoron to spend tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, borrowed money, on a bunch of signs to tell them how we are spending their taxpayer money.”

With federal spending and deficits right up there with terrorism among top voter concerns these days, this autumn might not be the best time to be a politician out there posting signs to brag about how much dough you’ve helped shovel out the door for debatable economic benefits.

andrew.malcolm@latimes.com

Orr writes for The Times. Top of the Ticket, The Times’ blog on national politics (https://www.latimes.com/ticket), is a blend of commentary, analysis and news. These are selections from the last week.