JEERS to candidates for public office who don't want to share their views on the issues with the public. You probably can't imagine that people would do all the work to sign up to run for office and get their names placed on the ballot — and then not want to give the public any information about themselves. Yet, it happens every year. Each fall, Press-Republican reporters call all the candidates in contested major races: county and city level, town supervisors, village mayors, town councils and village boards. We called candidates in 34 communities this year. It's a lot of people to track down, and it's rarely accomplished with only one call. That's why we start as soon as the ballots are set. We ask them all for biographical information and to talk about the major issues in their community. It's nothing difficult; any candidate should be able to answer these questions. And, once we reach them, most are very helpful and eager to get information out about themselves. Yet, every year we have a few who don't want to tell us what they want to achieve if elected or refuse to answer simple questions — the number of women who don't want to give their age in these enlightened times is ridiculous. We press hard to get them to fulfill what we see as an important obligation to the public, and to themselves, for that matter. How are they going to attract voters if they don't reveal what they stand for? Their town residents can't all stand up to demand that they share information, but we can — and we do. If they still wouldn't provide any information — we have only one or two this year — then you will see that noted in our election edition, which will be published Saturday. We hope voters really think about whether they want to elect officials who don't want anyone to know anything about them.
CHEERS to all the people who wrote Letters to the Editor in support of their favorite candidate. Campaign letters are as much a part of the political process as public debates, and we hope we are able to squeeze them all into print this year (They have to be printed by Sunday, or they are not going to make it). As we processed the hundreds we received — more than we anticipated — we'll recapitulate the most-frequent mistakes, which may have led to disqualification. Some missed the deadline for campaign letters, which we announced as Oct. 16 twice in editorials. (If you're not reading the paper, you're not going to know these things.) Some wrote well more than 300 words, which is our oft-stated limit. Some wrote more than one letter, which we prohibit because of the immense volume we receive — one letter per month per writer. One batch for one candidate arrived with a different person's signature on each, all written by the same person. That may have been an honest effort at expeditiousness, but it's too fishy to publish. We'll find out a week from tomorrow whether your letter had the intended effect.
