Earlier Actions of Candidates Predict Their Future Choices

Declaration of Independence author and past President Thomas Jefferson said virtually the same thing when he declared, "History by apprising (students) of the past will enable them to judge the future."

But these U.S. patriots are all wrong, at least in the eyes of The Daily Tar Heel columnist Dan Harrison, who in his column last week wrote, "Political campaigns at their best are a bet on the future, not a referendum on the past."

In other words, Harrison thinks one need not look at a candidate's past to determine how he might behave in the future. And surprisingly enough, there are apparently many in the Democratic Party who agree with him.

Do Harrison and his fellow Democrats know something that our Founding Fathers didn't? Probably not.

The truth is that Harrison and his like-minded Democratic comrades are now merely trying to do with U.S. Senate candidate Erskine Bowles what national Democratic leaders did with Bowles' former boss, Bill Clinton, when he first ran in 1992: ignore the past.

But when voters wrote off Clinton's past personal improprieties with women as nothing more than youthful indiscretions, they opened the door for him to continue his patterns of destructive behavior in the Oval Office.

Past behavior is a strong indicator of future performance.

N.C. Democratic Party leaders are well aware of this and have been desperately clawing for anything to tarnish the sparkling reputation of Republican U.S. Senate front-runner Elizabeth Dole.

In his column, Harrison pledged not to make any remarks regarding Republican U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Dole's "personal past or even any snide remarks about her husband's need for Viagra."

How altruistic of him.

But the real reason why you won't be reading anything negative about Dole's past in Harrison's columns or in any Democratic Party press releases is because there is nothing negative to write about.

The only criticism Democrats have been able to conjure up about Dole is for what they view as her attempt to avoid debates with the other candidates vying for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination.

"These are not fringe groups she is backing out on," Harrison noted.

He must not be thinking about the same slate of candidates of Republican candidates I have seen.

The six "fringe" candidates I am thinking of have tied Dole up to the proverbial whipping post on nearly every occasion. The "debates" appear to be more of a circus sideshow than any sort substantive debate on the issues.

At one such event I attended, Ada Fisher, a Rowan County school board member vying for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination, launched into a tirade about the amount of money Dole's husband, Bob, has made for his endorsement of Viagra.

Talk about a lack of real issues. No wonder Dole has avoided "debates" with the other Republican candidates.

To force Dole to be tied up while these candidates throw pointless and irrelevant barbs at her is utterly ridiculous and disrespectful of her lengthy public service career.

I'd say if Dole's past accomplishments and leadership are any indication of how she will serve North Carolina in the U.S. Senate, then she is the clear choice for voters this November.

Michael McKnight is grateful to all of you who sent him dirt on Erskine Bowles. E-mail him at mmcknigh@email.unc.edu with questions, comments or more dirt.