Figure What Candidates Stand For Beyond Slogans

Guest Correspondence

It is election time again. It is time to hear about the platforms of candidates, what they stand for and why they are running. There is a lot to wade through.

For new candidates who are not incumbents, you frequently hear general platitudes or a lot of “I’ll look into that” or “I am looking at all sides of this issue.” 

I recently watched a Facebook video interview where one local government candidate seemed enthusiastic and happy to be interviewed. But he did not answer one single question on a local issue that would come before the government body he was seeking to be elected to. Instead, the candidate repeated his stance, with snark, on a state issue he would never vote on if elected. He clearly did not know anything about any local issues, but he would sound good to those who cared about that one state issue.

It can be hard for a voter to know if the candidate bothered to educate themselves on issues or if they are just promising things without history or an understanding of how to pay for things. It is important for voters to look past slogans and to get that history. What would the candidate cut to get their platform accomplished? Why has this issue not been solved in the past? Can the candidate actually describe in detail the issue or are they just telling you what you want to hear?

For incumbents, election year can be a year of behaving like Santa Claus. Despite the stances of elected officials in off-election years, election years are a time to give every constituency everything they want in the hope the constituency will forget the previous three years of votes, which were different than their votes this election year. Voters should examine an incumbent’s entire term and see if they have consistently held a stance. Are they putting the government into a budget hole in an election year?

Voters should also determine if the incumbent has a history of just blindly following every staff recommendation out of laziness. Have they protected and defended the bureaucracy or the taxpayer? Are they just enjoying the title of the elected position and blindly reading from scripts? Are they actually reading their packets and making independent decisions?

Have they always advocated for transparency, open government and listened, or is this something that just happened this year so it did not become an election issue?

Finally, the most important issue is responsiveness. Did the elected official acknowledge you when you brought an issue forward and provide a welcoming attitude to diverging thoughts or did he or she just issue one-word responses or not respond at all? Did the incumbent try to solve the issue or is he or she more interested in what tee time is available?

Early voting starts one week from today. Start doing your homework and making sure that you have analyzed every race and thought about the future and the past. Voters should make sure the candidates have earned their vote and will continue to do so past the rhetoric of an election year.

Christine Robinson is executive director of The Argus Foundation.

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