When political candidates lock horns prior to an election, negativity is bound to be a part of it. After all, while candidates are busy touting their assets they have to point out the deficiencies of their opponents. Policy differences are fair game, but too often lies and deceptions are included.

Rarely, however, do these political disagreements end up with one side calling the police and saying a candidate was threatening the family and business of an opponent. But that’s what happened when incumbent Rep. Scott Reske, D-District 37, found himself the subject of a police investigation after Mike Gaskill, husband of Reske’s opponent, Kelly Gaskill, called the law.

It all began, apparently, with some negative ads the House Republicans Campaign Committee issued against Reske but were not approved by Kelly Gaskill. Reske called the Gaskills to discuss the ads.

When interviewed by The Herald Bulletin, Mike Gaskill said this of his phone conversation with Reske: “I was just stunned after (Reske) called because he made threats in the call that if Kelly did not denounce some negative ads that came out from the state Republican Party, he was going to come after her and hit back. He said he would hurt me, my business and my kids, as well.”

Here was Reske’s description of the conversation: “I called up to offer an olive branch and have an agreement not to have a negative campaign. Looking back, I never would have offered that because he took advantage of that and twisted it. I explained that a negative campaign is not good for the community, including myself, including their campaign.”

Anderson Police Department Detective Mitch Carroll at first said the matter was under review. A couple of days later, Carroll said the case was closed and no action would be taken against Reske.

Mike Gaskill said he had taped some of his conversation with Reske, and turned the tape over to the police. Gaskill admitted, however, that there was no smoking gun, i.e. something incriminating, in the tape. The newspaper requested a copy of the tape, as well, but the Gaskills did not comply.

It’s not clear what’s going on here, but the police investigators clearly believe that Mike Gaskill overreacted. Cynics would say that he saw an opportunity to take political advantage of Reske by reporting the call to the police.

Kelly Gaskill has been quiet about this, which is unusual since she’s Reske’s opponent. The Herald Bulletin tried to reach her for comment in both published stories last week and couldn’t.

We live in a society where political races are won by advertising. The ads can get negative and ugly and can divide a community where opponents are neighbors. That’s what Reske says he was getting at in his response to Mike Gaskill. To Kelly Gaskill’s credit, the negative ads didn’t get her approval.

Tuesday, the state representative candidates meet for a forum at 7 p.m. in the Anderson City Building. We hope this unfortunate event is over, and the candidates can talk about the issues without the taint of political subterfuge.

We believe:

Negative political ads can taint a race, as they did when an intimidation charge was leveled against a candidate by another candidate’s husband.