Posted: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 12:00 am
Star-Tribune Editorial Board
We're happy to hear that Republican U.S. House candidate Cynthia Lummis regrets making her election-night assertion that Democrat Gary Trauner couldn't understand Wyoming values because he was born and raised in New York.
Now it's time to move on to issues of substance, and we trust that the candidates will do just that.
Lummis had told The Associated Press last week that it would be difficult for "someone who was raised on the coasts, in dense urban areas, to transplant to a rural state and really have those rural values integrated fully into their psyche, into their soul."
Over the weekend, however, Lummis told Star-Tribune reporter Megan Lee that the statement was "overly broad" and did not reflect her views. That's a good thing, because it came across as an insult to the many transplants in Wyoming who have embraced the state - and it would have applied to Republican U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, a Pennsylvania native, just as much as to Trauner.
Both Lummis and Trauner say their general election campaigns will focus on issues important to Wyomingites rather than negative campaigning. Voters should hold them to that pledge.
Trauner showed it's possible to conduct such a campaign in 2006 when he challenged U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin. In spite of being the target of a barrage of negative Republican advertising (much of which had the same tone as Lummis's remark last week), he took the high road and campaigned largely on his ideas. Some say if he had "gone negative," he might have been able to defeat Cubin, instead of losing by just 1,000 votes.
With that excruciatingly close loss in the back of his mind, Trauner may be tempted this time to go after Lummis more aggressively. He's also likely to receive pressure and funding from the national Democratic Party to take such an approach. We encourage him to resist.
Lummis, meanwhile, showed during this year's Republican House primary that she was willing to do some negative campaigning. Her TV ads attacking opponent Mark Gordon (who also aired some over-the-top ads) were nothing to be proud of, yet there's some indication they were effective in pushing her to the nomination. She's also likely to receive some national GOP pressure to carry the negativity over to her campaign against Trauner. Let's hope she doesn't.
One of the problems is that perceptions of what constitute negative campaigning differ. Certainly, it's reasonable for a candidate to draw distinctions from an opponent. In some cases, it makes sense to point to the opponent's record. But that should not include distortions that mislead voters and do a disservice to our political system.
In addition, there's no place for ads that ridicule, demonize or demean candidates for public office.
Unfortunately, both at the national and state levels, voters often reward candidates for negative campaigns. That's why we continue to see them.
We encourage Wyoming voters to demand better this fall.