Tuesday, July 11, 2000

The drive to bring clean political campaigns to Ohio already is ahead of the pace of two years ago.

The Project on Campaign Conduct has persuaded the four candidates in the 11th Congressional District to pledge good behavior on the campaign trail.

The candidates are incumbent Democrat Stephanie Tubbs Jones, considered a shoo-in for re-election; Republican James Sykora; Libertarian Joel Turner; and Natural Law hopeful Sonja Glavina.

"Ohio voters want honest government and clean campaigning that focuses on the issues,'' said Laura Yeomans, research director for Ohio Citizen Action and state co- coordinator of the Ohio Project on Campaign Conduct. "These candidates are setting an example that other candidates should follow.''

Leaders of the clean-campaign effort say that increasingly negative, attack-oriented campaigns have led to growing cynicism and lack of participation among American voters.

Earlier this year the two candidates in the 3rd Congressional District agreed to a clean campaign: heavily favored incumbent Democrat Tony Hall and Regina Burch of the Natural Law Party.

In the clean-campaign group's initial effort in 1998, only eight of the 55 candidates targeted actually developed and agreed to obey ethical conduct guidelines by the November election.

The candidates develop and sign a written agreement to focus on issues and the records of themselves and the others in the race while avoiding personal attacks, innuendo and stereotyping.

-- Darrel Rowland