The business of making campaign signs

For the past 20 years, no matter who runs, he's been a winner in every election. How is that possible? As News on 6 business reporter Steve Berg explains all you have to do is look for the sign.

Tuesday, March 7th 2006, 10:00 am

By: News On 6

For the past 20 years, no matter who runs, he's been a winner in every election. How is that possible? As News on 6 business reporter Steve Berg explains all you have to do is look for the sign.

It's not the place you'd look for the center of the campaign sign universe and you might wonder how a former steel worker became the king of campaign signs."Oh, it's just a combination of things." Carl Oldham started making campaign signs as a favor to friends and so he tried to do it as cheaply as possible. "A bunch of us got together and started making signs for candidates, trying to save 'em money, and it just kind of come from there to this."

Turned out to be a good business model, because more and more candidates were electing to use him. "Y'know I've still got that same theory in the back of my mind to do 'em as cheap as I can for the candidates."

All the candidates, virtually every major candidate over the past 20 years has used Carl. "Every now and then, the two of 'em that are running in the same race will come in at the same time and that's kind of funny, watch 'em kind of squirm and look and."

Big or small, Carl does them all. And as you can see, he doesn't play favorites. "Every now and then, someone will say something and I'll say, hey it's a business, and I gotta make money."

Carl lives in Bristow, so he doesn't even vote in city elections, but his choice for best sign? "I'd say LaFortune. Got his name on it, solid red, real clean and that's the name of the game."

Every year's a banner year for Carl. Ironically, he makes no signs for himself. "I don't do any advertising, it's all word of mouth." Perfect for politics.