POLITICAL SIGNS in front of a temple in Garden Grove (Tony Flores photo).

It was the worst of signs, it was the worst of signs …

With apologies to Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities,” the communities of West Orange County – Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Stanton and Westminster – as well as others, are under siege by a blizzard of ugly, oversized and (frankly) insulting political campaigns.

In this space I have previously carped about the lack of useful information on them; usually it’s just a name, the office sought and sometimes a picture. They are about as sophisticated as a kid on the diving board shouting – over and over – “Look at me, mommy! Look at me!”

But content isn’t the only annoyance. Readers have complained to me about a) signs on public property, including fences around storm drains, b) signs that don’t come down after the election, as the law requires and c) campaign signs on property devoted to non-profit uses such as temples.

I hear you, Carol, Tony, etc. And then there are those who believe they can tip the election in their candidate’s favor by ripping down the opponents’ signs.

There’s no evidence that those signs are worth the paper they are printed on come election day. There is the suspicion that most voters are so un-interested in local government (and hence, elections) that they’ll just mark their ballot for the last name they saw on that sign on Beach or Euclid or Magnolia or Chapman.

If true, that just proves another famous quote, paraphrased from philosopher Joseph de Maistre: “We get the government we deserve.”