Sign war

A sign war is a competition between two or more organizations to gain the best visibility, or simply to engage in friendly "one-upmanship".

Particularly for campaigns that aren't large enough to have a regular stream of polling data for the local news media to report on, journalists will use other numbers based metrics such as the number of yard signs for each candidate in the district to help gauge support for individual candidates.

Every April, locals and politicians from all around the Commonwealth gather for some politicking, beer drinking, and fish eating.

Nationally, in August 2007, Democratic presidential hopefuls John Edwards and Barack Obama each claimed victory for his side in the sign war that occurred at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.

Probably one of the most famous sign wars occurs every presidential election year at the Jefferson Jackson dinner in Des Moines Iowa.