Nearly a year after we broke the news of Congressional candidate Sal Pace’s second arrest for public urination, a mainstream media publication has finally acknowledged the criminal act in print.

In an article about Pace’s meeting with the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel’s editorial board, Gary Harmon touches on Pace’s biggest Google problem.

Sal Pace, the Democratic challenger to Republican Rep. Scott Tipton, painted himself as a maverick unafraid to defy his own party leaders.

Pace also told The Daily Sentinel editorial board Monday he regretted two incidents when he was younger.

Pace, twice, was charged with public urination: once as a Fort Lewis College student in Durango and, more recently, in downtown Denver in 2003, when he was working as a staffer on a campaign against Referendum A, which was to build unspecified water projects around the state.

“The hardest part was telling my parents and some day I’m going to have to explain it to my kids,” Pace said.

As the Sentinel is one of the biggest publications in the conservative 3rd Congressional District, you can be sure more than a few folks will be learning of this incident through today’s paper. That is, if they hadn’t tried to type Sal Pace’s name into Google, only to have the first auto-suggestion be “sal pace criminal record.”

As we noted last week, the CD3 race is increasingly becoming a lock for incumbent Republican Congressman Scott Tipton. Outside groups haven’t been spending money, Pace recently lost his Communications Director and overall the race seems to be drifting away from competitive territory.

Even if Pace were doing better, this race would not be leaning in Pace’s favor with his full criminal record reaching print for the first time less than 50 days out from the election. Maybe Pace should have addressed this last year.