Angela Zimmann, the Democratic candidate for the 5th Congressional District, may have misled some of her audience at a Saturday morning candidate forum into wrongly believing she got the National Rifle Association's endorsement.
Zimmann, who says she will not toe the party line if she's elected, told the audience at the public library in North Baltimore she won an AQ ranking from the NRA, which she said is the highest grade a non-incumbent can receive.
It signals a strong pro-Second Amendment stance.
Fair enough, and good for her. Being on the right side of the NRA was a big boost to Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland in his re-election campaign of 2010 and although he lost the election to Republican John Kasich he might have lost by a wider margin without the NRA endorsement.
Here's where the trouble came in.
The next words out of Zimmann's mouth were, "I also have been endorsed by ..." and she went on to list a number of labor unions.
I took that to mean she had received the NRA's endorsement and Tweeted as much. It was only later in interviewing her opponent, Republican Bob Latta, that I learned he had received the NRA's endorsement, not Zimmann. He got a grade of A-plus, he said. I tweeted a clarification.
Zimmann has a PhD in English and teaches writing at Bowling Green State University, so she might have known the way her phraseology would be taken.
And while we're at it, Zimmann identified herself as a "professor" at BGSU. The university Web site says she's an instructor.
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