{"id":17770,"date":"2016-11-02T00:47:23","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T00:47:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=17770"},"modified":"2016-11-02T00:47:23","modified_gmt":"2016-11-02T00:47:23","slug":"no-yard-signs-for-this-voter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=17770","title":{"rendered":"No yard signs for this voter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"p71_political_yard_sign_poster_design_with_stakes\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I actually considered putting a yard sign in front of my house this year.<\/p>\n

Then I thought better of it.<\/p>\n

The last yard sign I put out on my property was for U.S. Sen. Frank Church, the Idaho Democrat who ran for president … in 1976!<\/em> That was four decades ago, you know? I was living in Oregon, the state of my birth and where I lived until 1984.<\/p>\n

It also was the year before I became a full-time journalist, which — believe this or not — usually does compel one to surrender a semblance of First Amendment guarantees of free speech and political expression. Why is that? The newspapers where I worked frowned on employees wearing their partisan leanings on their sleeves. We need to at least present the veneer<\/em> of objectivity while covering political issues.<\/p>\n

Well, I no longer am practicing journalism on a full-time basis. My career ended in August 2012, but I’ve been involved in various aspects of journalism on a part-time basis on and off ever since.<\/p>\n

Still, I toyed with the idea of displaying a yard sign this year. Then I kept reading social media posts from friends and acquaintances about the signs that had been stolen and\/or vandalized.<\/p>\n

What’s the point? I suppose it’s because this year’s presidential campaign has been so intensely personal — on both sides of the political divide.<\/p>\n

Given also that I live in Texas, where folks are allowed to carry guns in the open as well as concealed under their clothing, I shudder to think what might happen were I to confront a vandal or thief seeking to rip off or damage my yard sign.<\/p>\n

I’d like to reveal my political choice for president with a sign proclaiming my preference. I’ll just have to settle\u00a0for doing so with this blog.<\/p>\n\n

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I actually considered putting a yard sign in front of my house this year. Then I thought better of it. The last yard sign I put out on my property was for U.S. Sen. Frank Church, the Idaho Democrat who ran for president … in 1976! That was four decades ago, you know? I was … Continue reading No yard signs for this voter<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[1738,1796,6658],"class_list":["post-17770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-first-amendment","tag-frank-church","tag-political-yard-signs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17770"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17773,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17770\/revisions\/17773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}