Iowa Democrats choose the low road

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By Times Staff | Wednesday, October 8, 2008 8:03 PM CDT | () comments

Iowa legislative candidate Jonathan Van Roekel

couldn’t have been more clear in his June 5, 2008, letter to the editor:

“I was arrested for three OWIs (operating while intoxicated charges),” he wrote in a letter published in the Clinton Herald.

“Even though this happened many years ago, I feel it is important that I bring this mistake out in the open prior to the beginning of my campaign. ... I used alcohol as a vice to get through a difficult time in my life. It is a decision that I regret.”

So disclosure couldn’t have been the motive when Iowa Democrats included Van Roekel’s convictions in 1994 and 1996 in a binder full of dirt handed out to reporters last week. Democratic leadership bundled the factual file of GOP candidates’ prior offenses and used it to set up this comment from House Democratic Leader Kevin McCarthy of Des Moines: “If these candidates were elected to office, it would not be a stretch that we would need to establish night court at the state Capitol, together with a bailiff and maybe bring in Jerry Springer to cover it,” McCarthy said.

Van Roekel is challenging incumbent Polly Bukta, who clearly and quickly condemned her party’s tactic.

We do, too.

Van Roekel’s background certainly is among the campaign issues and he was the first to raise it. His offenses, along with the others publicized by Democrats, are readily available online to voters. That’s one of the reasons we’ve advocated online transparency of all court- house records.

Instead, McCarthy and his party’s leadership used these public records to indict an entire party. He threw in incendiary references to legislative “night court” and Jerry Springer just for fun.

Our editorial board has endorsed Bukta in the past. We look forward to interviewing her and Van Roekel for this campaign and making a 2008 endorsement decision based on all of the issues.

Iowa’s accessible criminal records speak for themselves. In this case, so did Van Roekel, four months before McCarthy.

But we want to be clear: The state Democratic leadership tactics represent the worst of Iowa partisan politics. Please leave the smear tactics and Jerry Springer out of this

campaign.