Candidates who live with parents and other vile stuff
Fellow columnist Jim Slusher made some excellent points a few days ago about our election coverage. To recap a few:
• We stop publishing election-related letters the Friday before. Too many come in at the last minute to be processed. More important, many "wait until the last minute to accuse Candidate A of some vile act, giving the candidate or his or her supporters too little time to respond or correct the record."
• With rare exceptions, our days-before-the-election coverage follows the same rule: We don't let the paper become the vehicle for candidates to throw last-minute mud and make accusations about their opponents that would be hard to vet. (Slusher added some parenthetical advice that was so good, it bears repeating: "You should be wary, by the way, of this tactic in the mailers you receive at home this weekend.")
• We advise writers that their letters are subject to editing. Since many contributors are not professional writers, it is natural that some of the letters require significant repairs. But more important, we attempt to edit out anything we know to be untrue (and that's certainly a matter of some opinion on whether we're too tough or too lenient), remove crude or hurtful language or personal attacks.
Let me give a few examples of such vetting. Names and some details have been left out to protect the innocent.
A political party leader submitted a letter ticking off reasons a candidate should not be elected: 1. A lawyer, he's being sued for malpractice by a former client. And, the writer claimed, he ducked the process server. 2. He's being supported by - gasp - a member of the opposing party. 3. He's 38 years old, and still lives with his parents.
The latter flaw sparked some tongue-in-cheek discussion, started by me, on whether candidates who live with their parents are unfit to hold office. A few staffers, though, pointed out they're in, or soon to be in, the same boat; but they gave it some context: They are caring for an elderly parent. In politics, I guess this all boils down to who's the caregiver, or more likely, who cares?
Some problems can be fixed with simple editing. In an otherwise OK endorsement letter, the writer wrapped things up by saying voters should join "our village president, our state congressman and state senator" in voting for that candidate. The absence of names could have been handled easily enough, but confirming the endorsements (and no reason to think they were untrue) would have been cumbersome.
One party bigwig claimed a candidate was prowling about a parking lot, jotting down license plates of people attending a function for a rival pol. When someone challenged the guy, he sped off and put a different spin on the incident on his Facebook page. Allegedly.
Though amused, I hit the delete button as soon as I finished the letter.
Is it helpful to send a letter congratulating someone for getting out in front and acknowledging an alleged problem with alcohol? We decided not, unless the candidate wanted to talk about it, and that did not happen. So, no letter.
And is it helpful to laud a candidate for taking prominent part in protests of a known "abortion mill"? That one could go either way, I guess, but we spiked the letter on the grounds it had no bearing on the office the candidate was seeking.
I should point out that most of these examples came in letters submitted in the past week. In a shocking development, yes, that's when the last-minute accusations are usually hurled.
All this is entertaining, I'll admit. And could you imagine if, say, Donald Trump accused another candidate of acting suspiciously at a campaign event? It'd be widely reported, of course, but perhaps with a yawn as it pales in comparison with the insult-mongering that's marked the presidential race. We could take that coverage as our queue and let the innuendo fall where it may. But for now, I like our choices.
jdavis@dailyherald.com