Well, no one got any initials carved into their face, but some volunteers for the Judy Feder campaign were assaulted when they tried to ask her opponent, Congressman Frank Wolf, some questions about his support for McCain's health care tax credit.
One of the volunteers was hit with a cane and punched. The other was pinned to a wall. The Feder campaign, of course, should press charges. Unlike the scarlet "B," this actually happened, and Congressman Frank Wolf stood by and watched it go down. In legal circles, that makes you an accomplice. If you're employing the thugs, it makes you rather more than that. As Matthew Yglesias dryly comments, "I’m sure he’s a nice guy, though." It's no accident, incidentally, that the questions Wolf is dodging are related to health care. Feder isn't your average congressional candidate. Rather, she's a noted health care expert who has served both at the top staff levels in Congress (as staff director of the Pepper Commission) and in academia (she's spent the last few years as Dean of Georgetown's Public Policy Institute). She knows more about American health care policy than virtually anyone else in the nation -- and certainly much more than anyone else in Congress. If she wins her race, she'll be a key legislator on the issue simply by virtue of having genuine expertise on the topic. And it's an advantage she's been exploiting in the campaign against Wolf. That he's now turned to thuggery to avoid replying to questions that Feder could answer with finger puppets isn't exactly surprising.
