Hey Candidates! Just Anwer the Questions and Check Your Facts: Mid-terms 2010

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Every election year since 1992 Project Vote Smart, CNN and prominent national leaders from both across the political spectrum survey candidates for U.S. House & Senate, governor and state legislatures on key issues facing the nation. Called the National Political Courage Test, in fact what it revealed was an appalling lack of courage and a complete unwillingness to take a stand.

Only 17% of all 2010 candidates for U.S. House, Senate, governor and state legislatures are willing to tell voters their positions on key issues facing the nation. The rest are afraid of exposing themselves to their opponents.

I was kind of bowled over by that number. Perhaps one way of looking at it would be the way that Richard Kimball, Project Vote Smart President did in a piece he wrote today. In fact this number demonstrates that candidates for office have a great deal of courage. It takes guts to stand in front of a non-partisan public interest group, journalists, and voters themselves, and refuse to take a position, a fortitude that is new in politics, enabled by developments in media. He writes sarcastically:

A half century ago, no candidate was courageous enough or cunning enough to avoid answering questions on major issues when confronted by citizens and major media. Then candidates simply lacked the strength of character necessary to turn away when confronted by principle.

Today candidates of both major parties march in lock step behind their armies of consultants paving the road to election victory. It isn’t just this dashing crop of candidates that are showing their pluck, it is the major parties too: both parties have organized their battalions so successfully that they can easily overwhelm citizens and media with nothing more than a bucket full of poppycock, saving their most potent weapons in a selfless effort to campaign on behalf of their opponents–clearly delineating their opposite positions on everything from issues to their personal habits.

With each election candidates lower the bar and now we find ourselves all fighting in the dirt. This successful domination of citizens is a remarkable achievement, particularly when the remedy of abundant, accurate, relevant information is well within their grasp.

The fact is we go to the polls with remarkably little information, especially on first time candidates who don’t even have records to go by, because they are unwilling to tell us anything.  We know this.  We’re not stupid.  We see that even when asked direct questions in debates or interviews, they don’t answer.  They simply stick to the day’s talking points.  When asked a specific question about civil rights and security, for example, they are much more likely to spout vague platitudes about the importance of national security or to attack their opponent then they are to ever actually answer the question.

We see the attack ads for what they are–vague, unsubstantiated charges based on hearsay, half truths and sometimes even outright lies.  They tell us nothing, they just unsettle us: The ominous voices, the red type, the dark images…

We know we go to the polls with very little information and we resent it.  I think that’s why so few American’s vote.  The process has so little integrity anymore.  I have the luxury of being able to find the time to explore the issues I care about myself, and I feel like an informed voter when I go to the polls, but it is hard, and I don’t think many people have that time, because it isn’t made easy.  You have to sort through so much misinformation and people with full time jobs, families, or other commitments simply don’t have the time.

There ought to be a way to hold politicians accountable for misinformation and we, the voters, ought to be able to compel candidates to answer questions we need to know the answers to.  It ought to be that way, but there isn’t.  And our democracy pays!

Fortunately there are tools to help you make an informed choice as a voter, even at this late date.

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