A test of character

LITTLE ROCK — WITH THE possible exception of weddings and funerals, nothing tests character under stress like how candidates behave in a political debate.

There’s the free-swinging, anything goes approach, which is much favored by the desperate or just willful.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, there are those who refuse to lower themselves to the mudslinging level-as much as they would love to have the approval of the crowd/mob/ electorate.

“Your people, sir,” Alexander Hamilton is supposed to have said, “is a great beast.” Whether he actually said it or not, the phrase pretty well summed up his attitude toward the popular passions he warned against in the affairs of the republic, which would not remain a republic long if it yielded to them.

That’s one reason Colonel Hamilton helped frame a Constitution designed to control the great beast, and then argued (and politicked) so effectively and eloquently for its adoption. To the point of joining James Madison and John Jay in writing that classic treatise on the subject of republican governance, the Federalist Papers.

Politicians’ appetite for office has scarcely lessened since the days of the Founding Fathers. And there is still nothing so revealing about a politician as how much of his simple human dignity he’s willing to sacrifice in order to win public approval-or at least incite voters against his opponent.

Today’s case in point is the debate last Friday between Joyce Elliott, the Democratic candidate for Congress in the Second District, and her Republican opponent, Tim Griffin.

Ms. Elliott, a long-time legislator, took advantage of the occasion to demonstrate that she’s definitely of the anything-goes school when it comes to waging a political campaign. She called Tim Griffin “one of the most crooked candidates for Congress” around. Or rather she let an outfit called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics do her name-calling for her.

It’s been our experience that the more noble-sounding a lobby’s name, the lower its tactics, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics seldom fails to disappoint our lowest expectations when it comes to political races in Arkansas. First it made unsubstantiated charges (bribery! fraud!) against the Democratic incumbent in the Fourth District, Mike Ross, and now it’s assailed Tim Griffin as “crooked.” When it comes to responsibility and ethics, this bunch shows no great respect for either. Naturally it operates out of Washington, D.C.

As a state senator, Joyce Elliott has never shown any great interest in going after the questionable conduct of Democratic officeholders who abuse their privileges-like driving statesupplied cars without paying taxes on them. At least not until they’re exposed in the paper.

Ah, but Ms. Elliott is quick to raise doubts about the ethics of a politician if he’s a Republican and she’s running against him. Asked how she could justify her charges against Mr. Griffin, she told our Michael Wickline: “What is said about politicians is fair game, and if it’s not true and you can disprove it, then you disprove it.”

So that’s how the game is played. Now we understand. It’s not up to her to prove the accusations she makes; it’s up to the candidate she smeared to disprove them. All she did was repeat them, like any malicious gossip. If this is Joyce Elliott’s idea of ethics and responsibility, she ought to fit right in at the nation’s capital.

Joyce Elliott was just warming up when she called her opponent “crooked.” Her campaign flier also claims he “wants a new 23 [percent] sales tax on everything we buy, including groceries, gas and medicine . . .” This must be a reference to the Fair Tax proposal that both Mike Huckabee, the former governor, and John Boozman, the GOP’s candidate for the U.S. Senate, would use to replace the income tax, among others. Actually, her opponent in this race doesn’t support it, and makes that much clear on his website. (If only Messrs. Huckabee and Boozman would see the light, too.)

Mr. Griffin does indeed support “some sort of flat tax” that would simplify the massive and inefficient Internal Revenue Code with all its loopholes and inefficiencies. If one could ever be devised that would largely exempt the poorest taxpayers while retaining the principle of a graduated, progressive income tax for all of us, we’d support it, too. We just haven’t seen it yet. This much we’re sure of-to say that TimGriffin supports a 23 percent national sales tax is neither factual nor fair.

THIS CAMPAIGN is still young yet, and many another low blow may yet be struck, but it’s important to note each one, rather than sit back and accept this kind of indifference to the truth as just par for the course in politics.

Call it the Elliott Rule: “What is said about politicians is fair game, and if it’s not true and you can disprove it, then you disprove it.” That is, when it comes to the truth or falsity of the accusations she makes, well, that’s not her look-out but her opponent’s.

We’ve seldom seen quite so concise, or brazen, a defense for smearing an opponent by repeating unproven, and unprovable, assertions.

As election day approaches, there’ll doubtless be even more heat and less light offered the voters. That’s how campaigns go. As the hubbub mounts, voters lost in the volley of charge and counter-charge that marks a political campaign might ask themselves just one question:

Which of the candidates has raised the level of public discourse? With that guide in hand, it becomes clearer which candidates deserve to win, and which to lose.

The object of this particular election, lest we forget, is to select a successor to Vic Snyder as congressman from the Second District. Whatever one thought of Dr. Snyder’s politics, and there were times when we didn’t think much of them, he was always a gentleman; he came by the nickname Saint Vic honestly. It’s hard to imagine him trying to smear an opponent. He set a high standard in debate, remaining temperate even in the face of provocation. Which of these two candidates to succeed him has upheld that standard? It hasn’t been Joyce Elliott.

It’s always revealing, if regularly dismaying, to see how low a candidate will stoop to inflame the voters, and how much of her own personal dignity she’s willing to sacrifice in order to tar her opponent. In that sense, every election is a test of character. And at this point, Ms. Elliott is failing the test. It would be nice to see her improve her performance, starting with a sincere apology. That would be one way to clear the air and raise the level of public discourse.