Traficant should have known his petition effort fell short

Ultimately, a candidate is re- sponsible for the conduct of his campaign, and so the failure of former U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant to collect the required number of valid signatures to place him on the November ballot raises a number of questions.

Is Traficant incapable of putting together an organization that could collect the 2,199 valid signatures the law requires?

Did he become distracted by something that was more important than qualifying for the ballot?

Did he place an unwarranted degree of trust in people in important positions in his campaign who were, simply, incompetent?

Or was Traficant never truly serious about running for Congress again? That would require his most ardent supporters to come to grips with the possibility that they were used

There are, of course, dozens of variations of those questions and hundreds of possibilities that others might suggest.

The only certainty is that Traficant is the only one who might know for sure — and no one can be sure of that, given his mercurial nature and penchant for drama.

Traficant’s supporters have already begun a familiar litany, with all of the excuses having a tired old theme: Traficant is the victim.

That simply won’t fly. Traficant knew he was running in a district that was redrawn after he was convicted of bribery and expelled from Congress. Being an experienced politician, he would have known that many of the people signing his petitions had reason to be confused about whether they were residents of the 17th District. Some of Traficant’s closest neighbors would have had reason to be confused because his Poland home is in the 6th District, not the 17th.

Because Traficant has done a masterful job of marketing himself as a renegade, he would have known that many people would be eager to sign a petition for him, regardless of where they were registered to vote or even whether they were registered to vote.

It was incumbent on Traficant, the candidate, to make sure that his petition drive erred on the side of caution. If the candidate needed 2,199 valid signatures, he should have instructed his supporters to collect twice that many. Obviously, 3,138 signatures did not provide the cushion the candidate needed. In Trumbull County, 489 of the 1,931 signatures were invalid; in Mahoning County, 471 of 1,074 signatures were invalid and in Portage and Summit counties, there were more invalid signatures than valid, 86 to 47.

He owns this failure

That Traficant’s best effort failed says something about his resolve, his competence or his integrity. Maybe all three.

He’s entitled to appeal, and if he’s convinced he’s been wronged, he should. But we’d be surprised if the employees and officials in four county boards of elections didn’t check their lists twice. They’re all aware that Traficant has an almost fanatical following, as well as being a notorious political figure.

Traficant will forever be able to play to the conspiracy theorists among his followers, repeating the story about how political forces conspired to keep him off the ballot rather than actually appear on the ballot and be trounced — which is what would have happened.

If that’s the price the Valley has to pay to avoid the national exposure of an embarrassing Traficant candidacy, so be it. At the end of a long day, it is becoming increasingly apparent that our crooked congressman is yesterday’s news.