The Editor's Blog - Latest Comments in NH Candidates To Voters: You’re On Your Own

Re: NH Candidates To Voters: You’re On Your Own

Andy Sylvia — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 10:19:11 -0000

Hi, I'm Andy Sylvia, and I'm one of those two from Merrimack who did respond(there's a third one pending, I found out today)

If anybody would like to ask me more questions, please feel free, my e-mail is andrew.sylvia@century21.com

If anything, i'm the opposite of these candidates, I am in desperate need to share what I think and hear what others think.

The lack of opinions coming from the places other than the frindges is one of the biggest reasons for the polarization we see now.

And speaking of hearing what's going on, is there anyway the Telegraph can have online reader polls for all the candidates next time? It'd be nice to know how i'm doing before election day.

Re: NH Candidates To Voters: You’re On Your Own

John Bachman — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 01:18:05 -0000

Got it. Thanks.

It looks like a pretty comprehensive and fair questionaire to me providing ample opportunity for the candidate to explain the nuances of his answers.

I can see where candidates would like to avoid answering - they like to keep their options open, not be pinned down. However, if they felt public pressure to complete the questionaire perhaps they would do so.

When most candidates for a position, state representative, for instance, do not answer then it is not a campaign issue. If most answered and some did not then the answerers could put some heat on the non-answerers and gain some political advantage. But when everyone avoids then it becomes a non-issue and everyone keeps on keeping on.

Hmmm. How can we raise this issue next time? It is too late for this go-around I fear.

Re: NH Candidates To Voters: You’re On Your Own

Nick — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 04:18:23 -0000

John:

My apologies if the instructions weren't as clear as I intended. If you follow the "here" link in the last sentence of the blog, it will bring you to the "Issue Positions" page of Project Vote Smart with links to "Congress," "Governor" and "State Offices" in New Hampshire. For example, if you follow the link to "Governor" and then click on "John Lynch," it will bring you to his actual responses to each question. Again, sorry if that wasn't clear.

Re: NH Candidates To Voters: You’re On Your Own

John Bachman — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 20:59:43 -0000

I followed your links and tried to find the questions that candidates were to answer but to no avail.

An alternative explanation is that it is possible that candidates did not agree that the questions fairly represented the issues and therefore did not respond. I cannot evaluate that possiblility without seeing the questions. Did I miss them or does vote-smart.org not make them available to the general public?