The Blame for Political Overkill

As helping to win elections becomes more and more of an entrepreneurial enterprise for consultants and contractors of all sorts, accountability becomes harder to enforce.

In San Diego County, we have heard candidates use their most cherubic voices to explain that it was the consultant’s fault, not theirs, that the campaign mailed out a nasty and untrue campaign piece against an opponent. And have you ever tried to question one of those clipboard-bearing eager beavers who haunt grocery stores on the weekends about what the petition they want you to sign really means?

Now, for the second time in recent years, the Republican Party has come under fire because people it hires to register new voters on the streets are turning away those who want to register as other than Republican. The response to the criticism from a state party spokesman left no excuse unturned: The agreement with the contractor calls for the laws to be obeyed; Democrats break the same laws as often as Republicans; it’s a rat race trying to register new voters, and finally, “if there are problems, let the Legislature change the law.”

The San Diego County registrar’s office confirmed that complaints have from time to time been received about Democratic headhunters as well as Republican. Regardless of party, what’s troubling is that work is now being done for pay that was once done by volunteers who, though partisan, presumably felt they had a stake in a fair system of elections. We hope the political parties fully realize that when one of these paid minions offends members of the public or creates bad press, the fallout lands not on some obscure subcontractor but on them.