Adhering to campaign laws is good practice for office

Saturday’s newspaper carried a story about some bookkeeping problems that Spokane’s two mayoral candidates have experienced.

Incumbent Dennis Hession faces a Public Disclosure Commission complaint for tardy reporting of some contributions, and challenger Al French is likely to get a call from commission staff because he never closed out the books for his 2005 re-election campaign.

In the grand scheme of campaign violations, these may seem pretty small. They don’t include stacks of cash left on someone’s back stoop after midnight, or laundering contributions through a series of phony committees with pleasant- sounding names to launch lying ads about an opponent on the eve of an election.

So why make a big deal about it, supporters of the mayor or the councilman might ask.

Well, there is the point that the law is the law. But beyond that, the law is also a pretty simple one to follow.

Candidates sometimes bemoan the red tape and paperwork involved in keeping track of donations. Voters would be right to be suspicious of such carping.

Truth be told, the rules ain’t rocket science. They aren’t that complicated, and the schedule for reporting is available anytime on the secretary of state’s Web site. We’re long past the time when a candidate for anything above a Cemetery District Board can say with a straight face “I don’t know how to use the Internet.”

Most candidates want an office that involves handling much more money, with far more regulations. If you can’t handle the PDC rules for your six-figure campaign, howya gonna handle the city’s nine-figure budget and the federal regulations for community development block grants?

Most candidates don’t do their books anyway; they hire someone else to do it. If you can’t hire a competent campaign treasurer now, why should voters think you can hire a competent chief of staff or department head after the election?

So that’s why the newspaper will continue to regard the ability to follow campaign disclosure laws as a significant marker of a candidate’s competence. This year, Spin Control will make note of disclosure deadlines and the candidates who fail to meet them.

Getting their 2 cents in

The Inland Northwest’s congressional delegation acquitted itself reasonably well in the debate over the House resolution on the Iraq War troop buildup. That is to say, as Republicans they didn’t stun anyone by voting for the resolution and didn’t embarrass anyone by going way out on a limb on the issue.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, of Washington, gave the congressional equivalent of a shout out to her homies at Fairchild Air Force Base, and Rep. Bill Sali, of Idaho, wondered about the taxpayers’ thoughts on Congress wasting three days of debate for a nonbinding resolution.

That probably marked him to C-Span viewers for the freshman that he is, because only newbies wonder about the taxpayers’ thoughts about congressional waste. After a year or so, they become immune to such concerns.

Still, Northwest inlanders can hold their heads high, regardless of political persuasion, when comparing their speeches with that of Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va. He warned that supporting the resolution would give aid and comfort to those who “want the green flag of the crescent and star to wave over the Capitol of the United States and the White House. … I fear that radical Muslims who want to control the Middle East and ultimately the world would love to see ‘In God We Trust’ stricken from our money and replaced with ‘In Muhammad We Trust.’ “

Beyond the fact that Rep. Goode’s accent leads him to pronounce that name as MOO-hammad, he apparently does not know that a basic tenet of Islam is that there is but one God, Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.

Either that, or Goode’s cash puts trust in Ezekiel or Isaiah or Jeremiah. Or maybe Edgar Cayce?

Presidential preference

Asked “Who’s your favorite president?” in a recent survey, Americans were more likely to say Bill Clinton than anyone else. He topped the list of presidents for about one in four adults surveyed.

That changed as the survey group got older. People older than 50 were more likely to say John Kennedy was their favorite. That’s probably a result of Baby Boomer skewing.

Ronald Reagan finished second overall, and third, behind Clinton, among the 50-plus folks in the survey conducted for the AARP Bulletin. George W. Bush was tops for about one out of 20 surveyed, regardless of age.

Not so good, maybe, but he came in tied with Franklin Roosevelt and ahead of George Washington.