Lentz on Schnellergate

Bryan Lentz was in yesterday to make his pitch for the Daily Times editorial endorsement and I asked him about Schnellergate.

For the first time, as far as I know, he admitted to advanced knowledge of the plan of his campaign workers to help Jim Schneller get on the ballot.

He defended his actions by pointing out that he didn't initially encourage Schneller to run. He said some Democrats across the country have sat down over a cup of coffee and intiated talks with Tea party-type candidates to run, obviously in the hope of drawing conservative and independent votes away from their GOP opponents. That wasn't done in this case. Schneller, Lentz said, was already running. In collecting signatures to make sure he got on the ballot, Lentz said he wanted to force Pat Meehan to "take a position one way or another whether he was the Tea Party candidate."

He added that having Democratic campaign workers work to get Schneller on the ballot wasn't "illegal or unethical." (He is most certainly right about it not being illegal - as for it being unethical, each individual voter in this year's election will be the judge of that.)

Asked by our editor Phil Heron, if he regretted involving his campaign in getting Schneller on the ballot, Lentz sighed and said, "I regret a lot of things."

When I followed up and asked if this was one of them, Lentz replied "It's an open question in my mind. I'll have to think about it."

More later.

UPDATE: My own sense is if Schneller pulls 3 percent of the vote and Lentz wins by 2, he won't regret it. If he loses by 7 and hears from a few voters that his campaign's little scheme turned them off to voting for him, he will regret it.