Generally, digging out and publicizing a candidate's sexual or marital transgressions is low, dirty politics and is not relevant to the candidate's qualification for office. I would not want to touch it with the proverbial 10-foot pole.
There is an exception to this general rule that occurs when a candidate makes family values a central issue of his campaign and claims that he, rather than his opponent, is the protector of traditional marriage. In that case the public needs to know whether the candidate who claims to be the protector of traditional marriage has incorporated those values in his life or whether he is simply a phony. We hear them talk the talk, but do they walk the walk? Remember Mark Foley.
I may be a bit naive, but I think that upholding family values and protecting traditional marriage means taking your marital vows seriously and upholding them. In the brave new world of Rove-speak none of that matters. It's all about how the fear of gay marriage can be used to political advantage.
Am I the only one who thinks it a bit odd that Republican candidates Joe Gimse and Bonnie Wilhelm, sitting at the feet of Karl Rove, have characterized themselves as the protectors of traditional marriage, but have broken their own marriage vows? That is why I went to the Kandiyohi County Courthouse, dug the truth out of the dusty files there, and Tuesday confronted the group of professional Johnson-bashers with the truth. These are the very groups that take money from anonymous Republican contributors, and use those funds to do the dirty work for Republicans.
I am pleased to hear that Gimse did eventually pay his child support obligation, but he was not paying his child support on April 17, 1986, when Kandiyohi County brought an action in court to have the court order him to pay child support. His wife and three young children were still receiving public assistance more than one year later on May 13, 1987 (Kandiyohi County District Court File Nos. F0-86-476 and F2-87-408). Be an informed voter.
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John H. Burns
Willmar
