With Election Day mercifully over, Long Island can expect the amount of mailers stuffed into their mailboxes to begin to return to manageable levels. Those glossy, graphically designed propaganda tools form piles of stacks on kitchen counters, side tables and elsewhere, patiently waiting for the recycle day purge to commence.
Can you imagine how brokenhearted politicians would be if they learned that none of us really read those things? Or, more accurately, imagine a sullen intern’s sudden realization that all of his or her hard work was all for naught. How depressing must it be to learn that one actually makes garbage for a living?
Similarly, those election signs that have polluted our landscape for the last few months will finally come down—that is, if the candidates’ team follows through and cleans up the mess they made. Do these lawn signs actually work? Has any voter in the history of elections ever been swayed one way or the other by a sign on their neighbor’s lawn or fence? What about the signs hung on expressway and parkway overpasses by enterprising electioneers? Have those messages crudely scrawled on bedsheets ever made you a staunch supporter of one candidate or another?
With all the political pollution choking the airwaves and social media, do we need the physical trash that is mailers and lawn signs? These signs do absolutely nothing other than satisfy the egos of those running for office. Such signs are a waste of money and are a jarring eyesore in the communities in which they are littered.
And when the elections are finally over, the candidates must make sure their teams scour the neighborhoods and clean up the mess their political ambition has produced. If they can’t metaphorically clean up the Island, maybe they can actually clean it for real.
—Steve Mosco
