Best Political Suicide that No One Noticed
Harry Welty comes clean about his past | June 13 Reader Weekly

Duluth School Board member Harry Welty decided to come clean about his past last summer, just four months before taking on State Representative Tom Huntley in the district 7A race. In his column in the Reader Weekly, Welty made several innocuous admonitions, starting with his early childhood and how he used to “pee outside by the garage rather than go inside to the bathroom.” Then, he made things a little more interesting by writing that he “smoked marijuana in college.” The highlight of the column, however, is Welty’s confession that he covered for some friends of his in college after they “took advantage of a mentally challenged, but willing, young girl.” Welty was handily defeated in the election, but scandal had nothing to do with it. No one seemed to notice or care about Welty’s past transgressions. Perhaps if they did, he could have won.