Family Matters: Candidate's Daughter Campaigns Against Dad in Oklahoma

Many candidates for office have to endure personal attacks and negative campaign ads, but it's not often that they come from within their own families.

That's the case in Oklahoma, where the daughter of a judicial candidate took out an ad in a local newspaper urging voters: "Do not vote for my dad!"

John Mantooth is running for district judge, and his daughter, 31-year-old Jan Schill, is trying to make sure he didn't win. She may have fallen short, as Mantooth gained enough votes Tuesday in the state's primary election to force an Aug. 24 runoff.

"John Mantooth is NOT a good father, NOT a good grandfather & in my opinion a review of his 37 year record as an attorney in Cleveland, Garvin and McClain Counties reveals that HE WOULD NOT BE A GOOD JUDGE," said the ad, paid for by Schill and Mantooth's son-in-law, Andrew Schill.

The ad also directed voters to the couple's website, Do Not Vote for My Dad, which lists reasons why Mantooth should not be elected.

On the site's blog, Andrew Schill recounts the time Mantooth left a basket of Christmas chocolates for his daughter.

Upon taking a bite, Schill writes, he discovered "the remains of the numerous worms and weevils that had long ago devoured the aged chocolate."

"Back in 2004, I asked Mr. Mantooth what kind of father would give his daughter the gift of worm-ridden chocolates for Christmas," Andrew Schill writes. "Today, I would suggest that the question the voters of District 21 should be asking is, 'if this is what Mr. Mantooth gives to his children, what would he give the people of District 21?'"

Mantooth told The Associated Press the bad blood is a result of his 1981 divorce from Jan Schill's mother. (Indeed, the website includes court records from Mantooth's two divorces.)

"This is a family issue which should have been kept private," he said. "I'm very sad about this. I'm very disappointed. I'm hurt, but I love my daughter, and I want things to get better, and I hope they will."

But Jan Schill said she has never had a good relationship with her father, and she remains unapologetic about her campaign against him.

"I assumed that he would not appreciate it, but he's made so many people mad, I'm just another mark on his board of people's he's had a beef with," she told the AP.

Mantooth suspects the rift might go beyond family matters. It turns out Andrew Schill was once law partners with one of his opponents in Tuesday's primary, Greg Dixon.

"That's a very strange set of circumstances," Mantooth said. "For a person to believe that Greg Dixon had nothing to do with this is like trying to believe that cows give chocolate milk."

Andrew Schill insists that he and his wife are alone responsible for the website and the ad. And Dixon also said he's had nothing to do with the negative campaign.

"Unequivocally, absolutely not," he told the AP. "I don't want to be affiliated with that website or that ad. I don't want to use it as a platform in my political campaign."