A large lawn sign supporting Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was torn down in Woodland Hills, where vandals also left behind what looked like a Molotov cocktail.
"For the next few days or so I was really out of it," Delores Ryder Liboff said.
"This Gerber baby bottle with a fuse, a wick coming out of it, and it had liquid in the bottom," she said, describing an object left behind near the sign that resembled an explosive.
The LAPD, fire department and bomb squad came out to investigate. The suspected Molotov cocktail turned out to be phony, but there was also a death threat called out by a passing motorist a few weeks earlier, and Liboff's sign, made with a blue plastic tarp and cut out pictures and letters, had been vandalized several times before.
"Our freedom of speech is so important," Liboff said, adding that she and her husband are Tea Party members.
Their sign -- displayed on a busy stretch near Winnetka Avenue and the 101 Freeway -- includes the message "Pray for Obama Psalm 109 Verse 8," which has become a popular anti-Obama slogan. The Bible verse reads, “Let his days be few and let another take his office."
In wake of the incidents, the Liboffs expressed concern about the steep divide and negativity in U.S. politics and wished for a more civil discussion.
"We pull together and we bring out each other’s talents," she said. "If you're a Democrat, why are you voting that way, is there a reason? Why are you a Republican, what are those issues?"
