The New York Times today reports that New Jersey Republican senatorial candidate Douglas Forrester is on the defensive about some newspaper articles he wrote over a decade ago when he was an unpaid columnist for the now defunct West Windsor-Plainsboro Chronicle, "opposing drunken-driving checkpoints, criticizing New Jersey's ban on assault weapons and saying that Atlantic City had "the subtle beauty of a streetwalker."

We think this is much ado about nothing, and could increase support for him. For example, we don't support roadside sobriety checkpoints either. Other than Mothers Against Drunk Driving and cops, we don't know why anyone would.

It might be helpful to Lautenberg if Forrester said he opposed drunk driving arrests, but he didn't: he said he opposes the random stopping of vehicles at a predetermined checkpoint without reasonable grounds to believe the driver of the car being stopped has done anything wrong.

The assault weapons ban opposition might have been important, only it's value is diminished by the fact that Forrester now says he supports the ban.

And if we were Lautenberg, we wouldn't brag about writing the law that used federal transportation funds to encourage states to raise the drinking age from 18 to 21. If the age of 18 renders one old enough to go to war, it's also old enough to drink. New Jersey has lots of voters between the ages of 18 and 21.

We hope Lautenberg wins, but we don't think negative campaigning over non-issues and old positions that may be supported rather than opposed by a lot of voters is the way to do it.