If I open a package of newly bought ground chuck and detect even a hint it has overstayed its welcome on the shelf, it goes back to the store for an exchange.

Sure, maybe everything would have been OK if we'd eaten it, but I don't take those kind of chances with my family.

The candidacy of Indianapolis attorney Linda Pence, the Democratic nominee for attorney general, has that problematic aura about it.

She recently represented Rieth-Riley, the paving company that eventually sprung for a $625,000 settlement against claims it helped East Chicago officials divert more than $24 million in public money into a sidewalks-for-votes scheme in 1999.

The attorney general's office now has a civil racketeering case pending against ex-Mayor Bob Pastrick and others in the sidewalk scam, and Pence is hedging her bets on whether that probe will continue should she be elected.

It sounds all right for her to say that she is unfamiliar with the details of the AG's case as it stands, and wants to review it. But listen closely.

"If the evidence is there, and there is corruption, I will go after it and I will continue the case," she said.

If there is corruption? The federal government, in a criminal trial, has already convicted six men of public corruption in the case. That there is corruption has been established beyond doubt.

If there is corruption? She knows through representation of Rieth-Riley that there is corruption. Her clients didn't cough up $625,000 out of charity.

But Pence is a Democrat, and Bob Pastrick is a member of the Democratic National Committee and a close family friend of U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind. When Hillary Clinton came to Hammond, Pastrick got the rock star treatment. People were asking for his autograph as he walked into the Hammond Civic Center amid thunderous cheers.

"I am against public corruption," Pence said, but went on to say, "I would not focus on one county, which I think I've seen in the past."

The "one county" she does not want to focus on is Lake County, home to a large number of Democrats and the state's ground zero for public corruption. What is she going to focus on, soybean price-fixing in Starke County?

"Frankly, that (East Chicago) case is one of the highest priorities in the entire office," said Greg Zoeller, the Republican nominee and right-hand man to current Attorney General Steve Carter.

It needs to remain so. To do otherwise is to give another nod and wink to public corruption in Lake County.

The opinions are solely those of the writer. He can be reached at markk@nwitimes.com or (219) 933-4170.