Ron Williams
News Journal
Numerous studies over the years indicate that only a small segment of the voters say they are influenced by newspaper editorials on who to vote for. According to a 2002 study for the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, only 11.7 percent said editorials in Philadelphia area newspapers affected how they voted.
The News Journal endorsement of Gov. Ruth Ann Minner's second term had only a couple of criticisms of her first term, including her support of the goofy three-tiered high school diploma concept and handling of the horrible hostage-rape incident at the main prison near Smyrna.
Voters might not react to newspaper editorials, but Ruthless Ruthie does. She has now said the three-tier diploma was a bad idea and won't support it, despite a task force she appointed to study it.
But the wildest reaction was on the Cassandra Arnold hostage/rape incident. Minner now has shamelessly cut a new radio commercial in which she accuses Republican challenger Bill Lee - "after a distinguished career as a judge" - of lying about Minner's role. The radio spot, which first aired yesterday, claims Minner never said of the incident, "You have to expect this to happen in prisons." Well, now.
Joe Rogalsky, a political reporter at the Delaware State News, will be surprised to hear this, since it was he who first reported the quote after a Minner telephone interview. The quote has since been used repeatedly, by me, in the news pages and in nationally distributed Associated Press dispatches. Two weeks ago, Minner first said she was simply referring to use of the prison system's in-house crisis team instead of the State Police Swat squad to handle the crisis.
The new radio spot also includes the strange revelation that it was Minner, not Corrections Department Commissioner Stan Taylor, who decided to use the prison crisis team rather than the better qualified State Police. Given that, Minner should certainly be called as a witness by her newly appointed "independent" task force, several members of whom are Minner campaign donors.
But let's say for giggles that Minner never said the line; that it was simply another example of incompetence by the news media, as she suggested at a recent Brandywine Hundred debate. If that were true, why did it take Minner's campaign crew three months to respond? If it was as wrong and misquoted as she now wants us to think, her staff should have been on the phone the next day screaming at Rogalsky, his bosses and threatening any other news media that repeated it. She didn't do that because it took her spin staff - talk about questionable competence - three months to figure out how to obfuscate.
Minner ought to fire the whole bunch of them. I've known Minner a long time and she didn't mean what she said to come out that way. (I was surprised she said anything at all.) So why didn't she simply recant, apologize and clarify? Because she's Ruth Ann Minner, the untouchable politician from Kent County who's never had a serious challenge to her elective supremacy. This one, however, got away from her. Voters with a half ounce of common sense will see through this attack ad on Lee.
Question Lee's use of the prison hostage incident for his campaign, but at least his account is honest.
Republican or whatever
The Wilmington city charter requires that a member of a party other than the majority party hold the fourth at-large seat on City Council. Although it's always been a Republican, it could be one of those can't-win unconventional party candidates.
Reach Williams at rwilliams@delawareonline.com
