Only in politics could two candidates with opposing views on a particular issue sustain injuries from the same weapon.

Tedra L. Cobb of Canton won the Democratic nomination in the June 26 congressional primary to challenge U.S. Rep. Elise M. Stefanik, R-Willsboro, in the general election this November. But shortly after her win, Cobb had to turn the damage control knob all the way up to 11. A video came to light showing her admitting that she couldn’t be candid with voters in the 21st Congressional District on what she thought about so-called assault-style firearms.

Recorded May 18, the video was posted July 9 on YouTube. It shows Cobb speaking with teenagers about gun control proposals. She referred to an event she had previously attended.

“When I was at this thing today, the first table I was at, a woman asked, ‘What do you think about assault rifles?’ and I said, they should be banned,” Cobb said in the video. “And I said … ‘I want you to know, Cindy, I cannot say that in public.’ And she said, ‘Well, I want you to,’ and I said, ‘I won’t win.'”

So Cobb believes that assault rifles should be banned. But at the same time, she confesses that she can’t let voters know how she views this issue because that could cost her the election.

Chris Martin, regional press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee, accused Cobb of lying to voters in the district. Stefanik echoed this statement in a July 12 tweet.

A week after the video surfaced, Cobb made an abrupt staffing change. Anna Sorensen of Canton, an assistant professor at SUNY Potsdam, took over as campaign manager for Mike Szustak.

On July 13, former Watertown Mayor Jeffrey E. Graham chronicled on his blog a heated exchange that Szustak had with Cobb while he was on an Amtrak train. The topic of the conversation apparently was this video.

On July 16, Szustak told my colleague Abe Kenmore that he was no longer working for the campaign. Both Cobb and Sorensen ignored repeated requests that day by phone, email and social media for more information on the turnover.

Of course, this signals the campaign’s concern over the optics. When people representing a political candidate go to such lengths to avoid commenting on a crisis, it’s because they don’t know how to respond. That does not bode well for success in the upcoming election.

But this story became even murkier. The young man who videotaped Cobb lied to others at the campaign event about his intentions.

Preston Scagnelli, a 17-year-old Clifton Park resident, provided a fake name and told them his cellphone had died. And when asked directly if he was recording the gathering, he said “No.”

This raised questions about how secretly recorded videos are used by political campaigns. It’s legal in New York to record others without their knowledge, although some find this troubling.

It turns out that Scagnelli has deeper connections to the GOP than previously known. Both the Post-Star in Glens Falls and North Country Public Radio reported Monday that he claims to be an intern for Stefanik’s campaign. Then on Tuesday, the news organizations revealed that the NRCC paid him three times over the past two months: $651.53 on May 31, $178.04 on June 14 and $150 on June 27.

Martin confirmed Tuesday for the Post-Star that Scagnelli was recruited by the RNCC to serve as a tracker. This is someone who attends campaign events and documents what candidates say. The material could benefit the candidates’ rivals, so they need to watch their words.

While I don’t condone the young man lying about recording the May 18 gathering, the uproar over the RCNN using a 17-year-old tracker is a tad overblown. Let’s not forget that he attended a public event with a group called Teens for Tedra.

Political movements often recruit youths to help accomplish their goals, and it’s no different here. Scagnelli is old enough to be gainfully employed, so he’s old enough to be held accountable for his bad decision.

Graham wrote on his blog Tuesday that using trackers has become common for political campaigns of many ideological stripes, and he’s correct. There is nothing new about gathering opposition research as sometimes it strikes gold.

While Scagnelli said he was an intern for Stefanik, campaign spokesman Leonardo Alcivar repeatedly declined to address this. Stefanik later told the Post-Star that he is an unpaid campaign intern. But if that’s the case, why not admit this from the start?

Stefanik also told the Post-Star that she’s OK with Scagnelli getting information on Cobb under false pretenses. Well, now! Let’s see how that one plays out down the line.

The evasiveness on display from both campaigns inflicts mutual harm. Withholding information makes it look like they have something to hide, and voters are left to fill in the blanks on their own.

Cobb should have been forthcoming about her views on assault rifles. If she worries that voters would hold this against her, then it’s obviously something they deserve to know. She may not support such legislation due to the district’s political climate, but constituents can’t assess her potential actions in Congress if they’re not properly informed.

Now Cobb looks doubly cursed. She wanted to control the spread of her views regarding assault rifles, but they were made public anyway by someone else. And this creates a suspicion that she’ll deceive constituents when she believes her opinions will put them off.

On the other hand, Stefanik and her staff should have stated from the beginning whether Scagnelli is associated with her campaign. If they didn’t believe that his secretly recording another candidate made them look good, they should have distanced themselves from him. But be open about his involvement, whatever it is.

Both candidates showed they’ll try to distract voters from an uncomfortable situation in their own camps. They came off as the duplicitous politicians they claim not to be, which means we’re once again getting more of the same thing we’ve received for too many years. When Cobb and Stefanik speak of a needed change in Washington, these acts demonstrate they’re not entirely sincere.

Jerry Moore is the editorial page editor for the Watertown Daily Times.