A big part of winning in politics, for certain in Minnesota, is the game of &uot;Gotcha,&uot; as each party and opposing campaign try to find ways to call attention to any slip in the other side’s efforts to win favor with voters.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee charged Minnesota U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy, who is running for the U.S. Senate, with altering news stories reproduced on his Web site, deleting passages that might be construed as critical of him.

After the practice was broadly publicized, the campaign announced it would link Web site viewers to other sites that include the full text of news articles, but said it hasn’t decided if it would excise the partial stories that do not contain criticism about his record.

It’s hardly a surprise to the voting public to find that a candidate who is serious about winning would want to shed the most favorable light on his or her record, regardless of what the truth is, but to edit articles that have already had wide circulation, as Kennedy is accused of doing, seems a bit much and somewhat deceptive.

As an example, consider this altered version of the above:

&uot;A big part of winning … for … Minnesota is … U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy, who has … the Republican spot on the senatorial ballot. …. News stories reproduced on his Web site … include the full text of news articles … about his record.

The … candidate who is … most favorable … is … Kennedy.&uot;

No words were changed, only some were omitted.

We hope Kennedy will post this on his Web site. Most of it, anyway.

&045; Duluth News Tribune