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A mistake in  a blog revealing that GOP State House candidate Brian Jordan writes about his own campaign under a pseudonym, and that his wife tried to cover up his identity, are the final, surprise pair of reasons I'm not voting for Jordan. (The first two are here.)

In a quick series of blog exchanges earlier tonight, Jordan was discovered to be the "Interested Voter" who has posted anonymously several times using the third-person voice regarding his own campaign against Democrat Faye Hanohano and other races.

A couple were snotty pieces directed at me, challenging my opposing views, taunting me about them, and pretending to predict my predictions about the races. But I generally consider these kinds of distasteful, unsigned comments as unworthy of concern  and ignore them, which I did with these.

But a string of comments pulled the cover off "IV" tonight. The first came in a response to a comment  by James Weatherford about Jordan  in which "IV" apparently got so excited that Weatherford predicted he'd win that he forgot the context and responded in the first-person voice, clearly indicating it was actually Brian Jordan.

At that point I wouldn't have been able to say for sure where the comment actually originated without some further technical investigation so it didn't look like I'd have a story about it before the polls open tomorrow.

But it turns out no investigation was necessary. Moments after the suspicious "IV" post was sent, confirmation arrived from Kim Jordan, Brian's wife, who asked us to believe that "her friend" used Brian's computer to write the "IV" post. Apparently "the friend" also pretended to be Brian Jordan but Kim didn't explain that.

The deceit was compounded when Kim wrote that "the friend" was first asked to check out the site last week, while "IV" had said earlier in a post that he'd been watching the site for weeks.

Kim Jordan then offered a lame "everybody's doing it" defense. I gues that since the site is unmoderated, people are free to take advantage of the privilege of unfettered speech and "IV" may hide his true identity as the GOP candidate to say whatever he pleases without any accountability. Or is it just stuff that he'd be otherwise ashamed or embarrassed to say over his own name? Either way it's unseemly behavior for someone asking to be our district's representative in Honolulu. 

The rabble may feel some need to hide in the swamp for cover when they lob their stink bombs at people, but candidates should be above that, standing front and center, candid and forthright with their views. For a while Jordan had me almost believing that's how he was.

And for goodness sake, if there's one lesson to be learned early in politics it's this: If caught  in a mistake, admit it and move on. People don't remember the deed as much as the cover-up. No need for such a clumsy effort here.