Sunday, August 17, 2008
Editorial: Going on the record shows political courage
Project Vote Smart gives candidates a chance to explain their positions on the important issues. Most would rather not, unfortunately.
From the RoundTable blog
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Virginia's candidates for Congress have a decision to make over the next couple of weeks: They can choose to provide voters with a comprehensive, fair and complete record of where they stand on the important issues of the day, or they can stick exclusively to the use of 30-second ads to sell themselves like so much toilet paper.
If the primary is any indication, most of them will stick to the toilet paper option.
Only 20 percent of Virginia's primary candidates completed Project Vote Smart's Political Courage Test. Candidates in the general election owe the citizens of Virginia more.
Project Vote Smart is a scrupulously nonpartisan group dedicated to providing voters with basic information about where candidates stand on important issues -- everything from abortion to gun control, spending and taxes to education and the environment.
The project's founder, Richard Kimball, lamented in a recent news release that consultants who run most campaigns these days usually advise against answering the questions.
Doing so, the consultants say, makes it harder for candidates to control their message and opens them to opposition research.
Kimball doesn't buy it. "If candidates are afraid of letting their opponents know where they stand on key issues, how can they possibly let the voters know how they will handle the job if they are hired?"
Project Vote Smart has worked hard to refine the test over the years to ensure that just about any conceivable policy position on major issues is reflected -- and that just about any conceivable excuse for refusing to take the test has been eliminated.
In case none of the broad range of responses adequately match a candidate's position, every question includes an "other" option that allows candidates to write their own answer.
The group consults local media, political scientists and leaders from both major and third parties to ensure that questions are relevant to the state. The questions and responses are vetted by the project's board, which includes an incredibly broad range of people, from Newt Gingrich to Geraldine Ferraro.
Though Project Vote Smart calls the survey its Political Courage Test, there are no right or wrong answers. The only way to flunk this test is to refuse to answer at all.
Virginians deserve better than slick commercials, packaged candidates and replies carefully crafted to offend no one. Candidates can give voters what they deserve by answering the Project Vote Smart survey.
If candidates refuse, voters should ask why.
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