John Kenwood, chairman of the Montclair Republican County Committee, said that during the previous presidential contest, there were fewer campaign signs dotting the lawns of township residents.

"Usually the town is quiet about it," said Kenwood, who noted that "it’s a very intense election, people definitely want something new, want to go in a different direction, and to show that they care."

And some vandals want to remove their political signs.

Kenwood told The Times that signs advocating the presidency of Republican Sen. John McCain have been stolen from several properties in Montclair.

Highland Avenue resident Brad Sanford had his third lawn sign backing McCain stolen between 7:30 p.m. this past Monday and 7:30 the next morning.

He purchased his first two signs online for $20 each. "I should have learned my lesson and bought in bulk," Sanford said.

It was the second time in as many weeks that one of his McCain signs went missing, and last week the sign was also nabbed between a Monday night, Oct. 13, and Tuesday morning.

Sanford, who moved to Montclair in May 2007, said he was "very disturbed" by the pattern.

"It’s almost as if someone’s watching us," he said.

Sanford’s sign has been attracting the interest of criminals for months. Someone ripped the first sign out of his lawn and ditched it in a flowerbed on his property. Sanford sealed a tear in the placard with tape and put it back out.

But, in early June, the damaged sign was stolen. Then, last week, its replacement was also nabbed. Number three, posted this past Saturday, Oct. 18, only lasted a weekend before it, too, disappeared.

Sanford said he intends to put out another sign. Maybe he’ll tie this one to the hedges, he said.

He noted that there has been no ill will from passersby over his support of the Republican ticket. A half-dozen of his neighbors have Obama signs in front of their homes, but none of them has expressed any negativity, either. And that was part of Sanford’s point in displaying the sign.

"I noticed there were hardly any other McCain signs in town," said Sanford, who wanted to show that "people can have a difference of opinion and can still coexist."

During the same time period that Sanford’s second sign vanished last week, Grove Street resident Craig Stringer’s Barack Obama sign was taken, too.

Stringer was out of town for five days and his neighbors, who last saw the lawn sign on Monday morning, Oct. 13, said it was gone the next morning. About two weeks before that, the same sign had been stomped on.

Stringer, who moved to Montclair about a year ago, said this was one of the first times he had ever put up a political sign, as a way of showing he supported the diversity Montclair prides itself on, as well as the Democratic candidate.

He said earlier this week that he has ordered two more signs from Obama’s Web site for $8 each, and he intends to display them in windows on the second floor of his house.

The Montclair police have received at least three recent reports of Obama signs being stolen or vandalized.