Schenectady, New York — They may not be as compelling as they once were, but political campaign signs are certainly everywhere. Whether it’s 1967 or 2024, they always rise quickly and fall slowly.

Running for office in an unplugged world has left candidates with names like Kelly, Krupsak and Coyne literally battling each other on the local woods with their best looks for voters. It was a simpler, albeit more complicated, time.

Dean Ruekert was a 21-year-old volunteer in Fred Field’s campaign for New York Assembly in 1968.

“We had these staple guns – the ones roofers use – and we would jump out of the truck and put them on the pole. Slam. And move on to the next one.

Ruekert says that during election season, dozens of volunteers would earn a Saturday by knocking on both telephone poles and front doors.

“We would load this van with 12 to 15 people. Children would have plastic bags filled with toys and balloons to hand out. And, on top of the van, there would be speakers playing songs from John Philip Sousa’s marching band…”

Once the election was over, unbridled enthusiasm for putting up these signs instantly turned into rampant indifference toward their removal.

In 1968, WRGB reporter Dick Beach stood outside his own home to complain about a campaign sign belonging to Saratoga Coroner Tom Bayly. Beach claimed that Bayly was going to use the same sign during his 1969 campaign!

Eventually, municipalities, stuck in the cleanup, began drafting a law regarding sign collection.

Some candidates, like Field, created their own rules regarding the removal of poles after winners were declared.

The team transformed an old Freihofer delivery truck into a campaign terminator. Ruekert said the weapon of choice was a garden rake.

“That’s something he (Field) insisted on: take down the signs, he didn’t want to be accused of littering.”

Today, durable plastic panels with aluminum poles are planted in rows as a cash crop. But do they help candidates collect votes?

Ruekert says maybe. “I don’t think highway signs have much effect on someone’s law – that is, someone willing to stand up and say, ‘Vote for him.’ When you install them on a telephone pole, it’s not a commitment. This is about building name recognition.

So maybe it’s just campaign loyalists – who don’t want to post them – who are saying, “Signs don’t vote.”

Today, there are strict rules regarding signage. The city of Albany has a 60-day limit on what it calls obsolete signs. In the town of Colonie, it’s 30 days. And National Grid tells us its policy dates back to at least 2002: No posting of any type of sign on any of their 1.2 million utility poles in upstate New York. The policy protects their crews who must climb them.