Pruden is strongest of four Republicans

Four Republicans are competing for the nomination to challenge six-term incumbent Ted Deutch in the 22nd Congressional District. It’s a solidly Democratic constituency, which Deutch won with 58 and 62 percent of the votes the last two times, so the Republican nominee will have an uphill climb. No other Democrat filed, so Deutch has a bye in the primary.

James “Jim” Pruden, 66, of Coconut Creek, is the Republican who’s best prepared to make a fight of it. The combination of his education as a lawyer — his second career — and his experience in technology management, including 16 years at IBM, strengthen his candidacy. He’s also the best financed, with $86,949 cash on hand as of March 31. But he has some strident positions and he’s a question mark on health care.

The other candidates, in alphabetical order, are Fran Flynn, 63, of Fort Lauderdale; Jessica “Jessi” Melton, of Boca Raton; and Darlene Swaffar, 52, of Deerfield Beach. None of the four has held elective office or sought it until now.

Flynn, Pruden and Swaffar submitted detailed questionnaires and sat for interviews with the Sun Sentinel editorial board. You can read those documents and see the interviews at sunsentinel.com/ endorsements. Melton did not reply until well after the deadline.

Flynn, co-owner of a trucking company, and Swaffar, who owns a health insurance brokerage, stress their support for President Trump and their dislike of his critics. Their platforms are thin on how they would make government work better.

Of the two, however, Flynn is the more reasonable. Swaffar is into some familiar Republican conspiracy tropes: One example from her questionnaire: President Trump is fighting the Globalist (sic) who want One World Order.” She claims there is “evidence of sedition and treason” in the government. We know of no such “evidence,” and can’t take her candidacy seriously.

Neither had a responsible position on health care, although both acknowledged it as a major issue. Flynn opposes the Affordable Care Act, although she conceded that people with pre-existing conditions should be protected. Then, however, she said she doesn’t think the federal government “should be regulating private health insurance.”

Swaffar said the ACA is unfair to people who don’t qualify for a tax credit and called for “an a la carte type offering where someone can pick and choose the essential benefit most important to them.” That’s a prescription for destroying health insurance by making it affordable only to those who don’t need it.

Pruden’s position on health care consists of wait and see. He said he has a plan to reduce costs for every American by approximately 45 percent, along with reducing government involvement and saving money for Medicare.

That would be quite something. But he said he won’t reveal it until after the primary. That gives us pause. All three are lost causes on gun control. Unlike the others, Pruden is not uncritical of President Trump. He faults his “communication style and street fighter approach in dealing with his political opponents.” But, he said, “that is not reason enough for me to abandon my principles.” He likes the results of Trump’s governance, if not the style.

Like the others, however, he disapproved of Trump’s impeachment. And he seems to have bought into the White House line that there was a conspiracy on the part of Democrats, the CIA and the FBI against Trump. That gives us pause too, but he is still the best qualified of the four Republicans.

According to Melton’s website, she is a single parent who moved to Florida relatively recently, in 2011 and now runs a wireless infrastructure company. The site is very thin on issues, though she is against illegal immigration, for absolute parental choice in school enrollment, opposes gun control, is uncritical support of Israel, calls the “free market” the only source of affordable health care, and expresses support for veterans and “higher tax breaks and incentives for individuals and corporations contributing to the welfare of the people and investing in underserved communities.”

Pruden