Hull’s Order of Protection

To fairly treat a story like an order of protection against a candidate, one has to be able to make calls and devote some time to the story-the thing I don’t always have and so you have rely on a real reporter.

Eric Zorn tackles the order of protection that Hull’s ex-wife, Brenda Sexton, filed for in 1998. The documents are sealed along with the rest of the divorce files. The campaign and Ms. Sexton both refuse to explain in detail what occurred.

It’s not a "personal matter" when questions about the circumstances behind a request for an order of protection hang over the head of a man who is at or near the top of the polls in the race for his party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate.

Maybe it was nothing, really. But maybe not. And the truth is, Hull’s candidacy has given us a right to know.

For Democrats the question should be simple. What happened? We just spent a few weeks trying to get a President to tell us what happened during his service to the National Guard. We still don’t seem to have all the answers to that question and it is a drain on his credibility. Perhaps there is a simple answer, but the President has drawn it out by avoiding the issue. Even with the release of records, people can’t tell where he was when. Drip, drip, drip.

You can be sure that Jack Ryan, Andrew McKenna, Steve Rauschenberger, and especially Jim Oberweis will have the issue raised, whether by them or by surrogates. If the information is not released it will be a constant drip, drip, drip questioning Hull’s credibility.

So do everyone a favor and release the records and talk about it now. If there is nothing there we can quickly move on. If there is something there, Hull has a chance to take responsibility and the opportunity for damage control in the party’s primary. But Democratic voters should know what they are getting before the general election and make both personal evaluations of the incident as well as an evaluation of the impact on Hull’s electability, if any.

Eric doesn’t mention it, but very personal allegations were later made against 1992 Senate Candidate Al Hofeld. An order of protection is far less serious than that which Hofeld was accused, but serious nonetheless. Hofeld probably would have been in the Senate when the allegation came out if he had been successful in the primary. That would have been unacceptable. Voters deserve to know about the character of their representatives. In this case, determining that character will be done by how forthright he is about a relatively recent event.