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It had been refreshing to watch the six candidates for Wheeling mayor keep their campaigns positive, focusing on issues affecting the city's residents rather than devolving into below-the-belt bickering that has infiltrated other high-profile campaigns. The candidates -- Carl Carpenter, Beth Hinebaugh, Rosemary Ketchum, Denny Magruder, Chad Thalman and J.T. Thomas -- showed others how it could be, and should be, done.
That atmosphere vanished this past Monday.
Campaign mailers packed with negativity and name-calling started populating city mailboxes that day. Some of those mailers contained QR codes that sent people to a page where negative videos could be viewed.
All six candidates denied involvement in the mailers and the videos. If that's the case, there's someone out there working to turn the home stretch of the mayoral campaign into a back-biting disappointment.
That the ads are negative isn't the problem. Negative campaigning has long been part of our political system. The issue here is that the mailers are illegal.
According to federal and state election laws, campaign advertisements must disclose the person or group that paid for them. The Federal Election Commission is very specific on that point, going as far as suggesting the size of the font and appropriate color contrasts so disclaimers are easy to see.
On all these mailers, those disclaimers are nowhere to be found.
What's worse is there is a Wheeling Post Office box number being used as a return address on those mailers -- and the owner of that box told our reporter that he has nothing to do with the mailers, doesn't know who's sending them and doesn't understand why his box number is included on them.
Did the culprit purposely use another person's address to make it even more difficult to figure out who's sending those fliers?
All six candidates have mentioned how much they have enjoyed the campaign, how their debates have been collegial and how they've been able to focus on the things that Wheeling residents really want to know. Now, with just days left until Election Day, many of them must deal with accusations made by someone who doesn't have the courage to identify themselves. Meanwhile, a Wheeling resident worries that he'll be unfairly connected to the illegal act.
That's pathetic.
At some point, the culprit's identity will be revealed. As smart as they might think they are, the West Virginia Secretary of State's Office has resources to track them down. "We have five times the number of investigators we did when I came into the office," West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner told us on Monday. "We take election security very seriously. There are all kinds of ways investigators can go about that. They can go back into the mail system, see where it originated from and who it was delivered to. Through a process of elimination, you should be able to figure out where it came from."
When that person's identity is revealed, they should face consequences. Wheeling's mayoral race has been unnecessarily sullied and a Wheeling resident must deal with the fallout of an anonymous coward's craven behavior.
That behavior can't go unpunished.