Just a few days before Lincoln’s April 3 primary election, Rachelle Hadley opened her mail to find a postcard from the state Republican Party telling her why she shouldn’t vote for Chris Beutler for mayor.

The Republicans sent out three mailings that week, detailing Beutler’s votes as a state senator on taxes, such social issues as abortion and gay marriage and his failing grades from business groups.

But the mailing that landed in Hadley’s mailbox did not have the effect Republicans were looking for: She ripped it up and threw it away.

And her husband threw away a flier from the state Democratic Party accusing Ken Svoboda of “passing the buck” in his personal and professional life.

They were so disgusted they changed their votes in protest. Neither voted for Svoboda or Beutler.

Hadley said there’s enough nastiness in national campaigns.

“Why does it have to leak down to a mayoral campaign when it’s supposed to be nonpartisan? I just think it’s ugly behavior. Why do we have to lower ourselves to that?”

She thinks it’s a waste of money for the parties to send out full-color mailings attacking the other party’s candidates. She’d rather get a flier telling her how the candidates stand on issues and what they’d do if elected.

Funny thing is, both Beutler and Svoboda sound a lot like Hadley when decrying negative campaigning.

Both say they want the campaign to stay positive. Both condemn their parties for launching negative or personal attacks on their opponent.

But the political reality is that often the party does the dirty work for candidates — whether they want them to or not.

Svoboda has vowed to run a positive campaign, but says, “I don’t have control over the party.” Last week, he said he knows “they’ll do what they have to do” to get a Republican mayor elected.

Does the left hand really not know what the right hand is up to?

Eric Fought, deputy director for the Nebraska Democratic Party, said the party operates independently from the candidate.

“I will tell you point blank: I’ve never had a conversation with Chris Beutler about any of these things,” Fought said.

Asked if that’s a convenient way to allow the candidates to keep their hands clean, he said the party’s role is to show voters the differences between candidates and inform the public about the opponent.

Beutler needs to focus on selling himself, Fought said, and “he’s not able to do that if he’s spending time talking to us and working with us on these issues.”

Translation: Beutler can tell voters about himself. We’ll tell them everything they need to know about Svoboda.

Even if a candidate asked the party to stop launching such missives, it probably wouldn’t, said Tiffiny Carlton, executive director of the Nebraska Republican Party.

Asked whether she’d put the brakes on future mailings if Svoboda asked her to, she said, “Probably not.”

Fought basically said the same.

“We certainly respect Chris’ opinion, but once again, we have a job to do in informing the public of the record of Ken Svoboda and his difficulty in really taking care of matters,” he said.

Svoboda said he didn’t know about the Republican party’s mailings until he got one in his own mailbox, but he said he didn’t consider them negative because they were based on Beutler’s voting record. However, he did disapprove of a photo in one mailing that shows Beutler looking like he’s either scowling or puckering up.

Beyond negative was how Svoboda viewed a Democratic mailing attacking him. The mailing reminded voters that a judge ordered Svoboda to pay nearly $7,000 in back child support, plus interest. It didn’t mention that it happened about 20 years ago.

“It was a personal hit that I thought was just disgusting,” Svoboda said. “It was a family issue.”

As reported in the Journal Star six years ago, Svoboda said his ex-wife had agreed he didn’t need to pay child support while his daughter lived with him. And they worked it out. 

The Democratic mailing also mentioned previously reported problems with Svoboda’s city contracts to maintain landscaping on medians. “It’s one thing attacking my family business because I have a city contract,” Svoboda said.

It’s another to attack him personally. “I guarantee the Republicans will never do anything like that.”

Carlton said the Republican mailings about Beutler’s voting records weren’t negative, they were just trying to correct the record because she believes Beutler is misrepresenting himself.

“It’s not negative to contrast your candidate to another candidate or contrast records,” she said. “I don’t think ours were mean-spirited.”

Fought — who helped orchestrate the Svoboda mailing — said it was just a factual accounting of Svoboda’s personal and professional failings.

“This is serious business,” Fought said. “We’re talking about the mayor of the second-largest city in the state of Nebraska. This is not something to be just taken lightly. These are serious issues that the public needs to know about.”

Carlton said voters won’t see such “below the belt” personal attacks from her party on Beutler.

“It’s exactly what people are sick of in politics,” Carlton said.

Svoboda called the mailing a “masterful” hit he suspects was orchestrated by Beutler’s campaign manager, Rick Hoppe, a former aide to Mayor Coleen Seng. He found it interesting that the Democrats’ mailing referred to “Ken Svoboda’s long record of passing the buck,” considering one of Beutler’s campaign themes has been, “The buck stops here.”

Hoppe said he was not involved in the mailing, and Beutler said his campaign was not consulted before it went out. In fact, campaign finance rules prohibit collaboration on such party ads, officials from both parties said.

Beutler called Svoboda the day of the mailings and apologized, Svoboda said, promising, “It will not continue.”

“I do not believe that discussing Mr. Svoboda’s personal life was appropriate,” Beutler said in a press statement. “I am extremely disappointed that they have chosen to take this route.”

Beutler said the campaigns should talk about the candidates’ differences of opinion, but “personal negative attacks are just plain wrong.”

Asked whether Beutler asked him to stop such mailings, Fought said he never heard directly from Beutler but got a news release condemning the mailings.

“Sometimes people are upset, and we certainly have heard from them, but the fact is that often it is effective,” Fought said.

Carlton agreed, saying it would be nice if voters made up their minds based on candidates’ records and visions, but they remember the negative stuff more than anything.

“It definitely sticks in people’s minds,” she said.

Hadley recognizes that: After all, Beutler and Svoboda finished No. 1 and 2 in Tuesday’s election, even without her vote.

Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.