Politics by the Yard

When Daughter Number Three-Point-One was in her early elementary school years -- 2000 and 2004 -- we noticed a pattern while walking around during election time.

As you may expect, there are not many Republicans living in Saint Paul and Minneapolis, and so not a lot of yards have Republican lawn signs. But when there are such signs, they almost always seemed to be in yards like these:


Signs for Democrats, on the other hand, were in yards like this:


Yes, that's a rain garden on the right. Or even yards like this:


With no lawn at all.

It's not that signs for Democrats didn't ever appear with a grass lawn. But when they did, the lawn looked more like this:


Which is clearly not fertilized or doused with weed killer, and which looks a little dry because it lacks the consistent watering you get from installing a sprinkler system.

I don't know if this is a case of confirmation bias on my part, or if it's a true pattern. It's particularly tempting to make an analogy about love of monoculture, but I will hold back. It may just be Saint Paul, after all. I can imagine things being different in the suburbs, where a house with signs for Democrats might have a Chem Green lawn just like any other.

But in my city, I'll be watching these particular lawns in 2016 to see what kind of signs (if any) they put up.