Prior to election, it seems that character assassination is more the norm than attacking an opponents position on important issues.  Take the case of New Jersey congressional candidate Jon Runyan, a former NFL lineman for the Titans and Eagles.  Runyan came out yesterday and talked about his tax problems to make sure the public knew before his opponents ran ads talking about it.  There is also a story going around that Runyan had a DUI in 1995 while at Michigan State.  Why that is relevant fifteen years is beyond me, but his opponents floated the story obviously to titillate the electorate.

Here's the bottom line: I'm sure we can find a whole bunch of flaws in Jon Runyan.  He's a former lineman, he's probably used profanity before.  He may have been late for practice, he may have caused the Titans or Eagles a game by holding or clipping or got into a fight on the field.  Whatever.  Who cares?  The only thing voters should care about is how Jon Runyan feels about the issues and what he proposes to do about them.

These are tough times, folks.  We're still in a recession.  People are still losing their houses and their jobs.  We have fourteen million undocumented people to deal with.  We have taxes to deal with.  We have offshore drilling to deal with.  What we don't have time to deal with is a DUI from fifteen years ago. 

I don't care if my congressman likes to spend his off hours snorting lines of coke off the backsides of hookers.  All I care about is that he represent my beliefs to the best of his ability.  Because, at the end of the day, it's his vote that is my vote.  And I care a lot more about taxes, employment, education and undocumented workers than I do if my congressman is a saint.

I don't know if Jon Runyan will win his bid for congress from New Jersey, but I hope the voters there judge him on the content of his ideas, not his past.