I suppose that in any close political campaign, a candidate’s arrest even from more than 30 years ago — from a fight in his freshman year in college — is going to become an issue. In VA-11, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has sent out mailers that cite a 1976 incident involving Keith Fimian, the Republican challenger to Rep. Gerry Connolly, D. (Naturally, there’s no mention that it happened during the Ford administration.)

But this might not be a very prudent attack in this particular instance, because voters in the district are likely to remember Connolly’s much more recent run-in with the law. In 2004, he veered with his Toyota Camry into the wrong lane and crashed into a married couple’s Ford Explorer. They testified that the collision was very loud, although the damage was slight. Connolly, then serving as chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors,  looked straight at the occupants of the Explorer, they testified, and drove away to a meeting, even as they honked to try to get him to stop.