Dan Roberts For Congress Blog

He's the only announced Republican in our upcoming congressional race (what district are we in now?). I was checking out his campaign web site the other day and noticed he has a blog of sorts. One of his first commentaries was regarding the California Public Employee Retirement System (CALPERS).

I'm not making any judgement as to Dan's viability as a candidate, but I think it's generally a mistake for him to bring up issues that aren't within the purview of the office he's seeking. I thought the same thing when Libertarian Party Candidate for Congress, Emil Rossi, sent out a release criticizing then State Assemblygal, Virginia Strom- Martin, on some state education related bill.

When you make a statement regarding an issue, you're opening yourself up to conflict not just with opposing candidates, but the voters as well. That's inevitable in a race for congress but, if you're going to raise the potential of having people disagree with you, you might as well limit the potential disagreements by keeping those topics related to the position you're running for. Why pick a fight when you don't need to?

If Dan wants to bring up an opponents' past state legislative record that shows a particular pattern of behavior such as heavy spending or restricting people's freedom, that might well be appropriate, but the caveats still apply.