Opinion: Mr. (or Ms.) candidate: Tear down those signs! Or pay up

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Iraq has cost this country billions of dollars -- now Iraq’s just given me an idea to help out our economy just a smidge in return.

Iraq’s election was on Sunday. Under Iraqi law, political parties or candidates or both have just three days to take down all of their campaign signs, or be fined.

Love that. Love, love, love it.

Let’s make that the law of the land here.

First of all, it will rid the landscape of all that obnoxious eye clutter; seeing campaign signs weeks after the election is like seeing the empty bottles piled in the trash after a New Year’s Eve party that everyone would just as soon forget.

Second, think of the temporary jobs it would create. Campaigns and candidates, local, state and federal, would have to spend some of their political loot to clean up their own messes, which means hiring people to drive around and take down the ‘’vote for me me me’’ ads.

Third, if they don’t remove them, then, as in Iraq, they’ll be fined. This is wonderful, the notion of transforming some of those millions in campaign moolah into tangible, laudable stuff for the public. How could politicians dare to complain when that money they’d raised at cocktail parties and tribute dinners goes to fixing up some wrecked streets, or paying someone to look after some elderly bed-bound lady?

I love it. The only catch -- before it can happen, politicians have to vote for it.

-- Patt Morrison